Read the Next-Gen Tech Tops IT's Wishlist white paper.

The IT department is not the stodgy back-office bottleneck of old. A recent survey finds IT decision makers are eager to employ some far-out technologies — if they didn’t have to worry about costs.

More than 70% indicated virtual/augmented reality and AI/machine learning are the technologies that best support innovation. In fact, it will take the application of AI and machine learning for virtual and augmented reality to realize growing expectations.

‘VR on aisle 4!’

There have been many stories written about military applications of VR, but it’s also being applied to improve your local shopping experience.

According to Entrepreneur: “Partnered with virtual reality startup STRIVR, Walmart uses virtual reality technology at its training academies to help employees experience real-world scenarios. Employees can experience a holiday rush or a mess in an aisle, and learn how to effectively respond and handle these events.”

But making such applications practical for everyday use is going to require lots of bandwidth and flexibility to handle the ever-greater volumes of data that make AR and VR really “real.”

Realizing the promise of AR and VR will require the ability to choose from a variety of transport mechanisms — ranging from metro Ethernet to SD-WAN, from high-speed broadband to low-cost mobile — to ensure they can be useful in a wide range of environments, from powerful desktops to handheld devices. To achieve this, enterprises will need the fast, flexible, application-based routing provided by software-defined networking (SDN) technologies.

“SDN makes it possible for engineers and administrators to deploy and support distributed enterprise networks through centralized software controls that can activate and manage resources when and where they are needed,” writes Kevin O'Toole, senior vice president, Product Management, at Comcast Business.  “This new way of delivering services -- from routers and networking to security -- promises unprecedented performance and flexibility.” 

To learn more about the future of networking, discover Comcast Business’s newly announced ActiveCore^SM SDN platform.