As Organizations Transform, Networks Must Change

Every cloud has a silver lining. While there is no disagreement that the pandemic had a devastating effect on organizations, it catalyzed their move toward digital transformation. For most organizations, the infrastructure they had built over the years fell short supporting them in the new normal of doing business, which was remote. As a result, they had to pivot almost overnight to the cloud to sustain business continuity. Later, with the cloud in place, it was easy for them to leverage mobility, IoT, big data analytics, and other technologies. This helped organizations create new revenue streams, eliminate inefficient processes, and better predict growth.

However, outdated network characteristics such as manual configuration, overlay security focused on external threats, and siloed network domains limited the network from unleashing the true benefits of digital transformation. Therefore, it is inevitable that as organizations transform into digital businesses, networks must change.

Today's network should have capabilities like integrated security, scalable advanced routing, full visibility into traffic, automation, and sophisticated analytics to support digital businesses. The following technologies help build modern networks.

Software-defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN)

In a multi-cloud environment that requires bandwidth optimization to support traffic flows like VoIP or live streaming, SD-WAN plays a pivotal role. The network administrator can use software to allocate the right bandwidth as per the application requirement and reduce latency. This facilitates organizations to establish fast and reliable connectivity for next-gen cloud services. Besides, SD-WAN can increase their ability to monitor and control application performance and end-user experience. Since the technology involves aggregating multiple connections at each site from different ISPs, the network remains up and running even if a service provider experiences an outage. It makes a business more agile – responding quickly to market needs and opportunities.

Intent-based Networking

In 2017 Gartner announced the shift from software-defined networking (SDN) to 'intent-based networking' as 'the next big thing'. Today, the shift is evident for organizations with a complex environment of larger and growing networks. SDNs rely on intelligent firewall policies to manage traffic, and network architects may spend more time configuring network devices to match data transmission needs. On the other hand, intent-based networking has built-in intelligence to auto-provision network resources based on AI-driven high-level information that describes the intended or ideal network state. It makes sure that network changes or updates are seamlessly configured and translated across different IT environments, helping organizations keep pace with the demands of digital and cloud.

Network automation enables network configuration with minimal to no human intervention, helping network administrators to do more with less. It automates low-priority tasks often overlooked due to firefighting mode. Network automation also helps them proactively support new business needs.

AI

Apart from playing a crucial role in network automation, AI can analyze and predict network outages and identify the root cause of network performance degradation. Thereby it can decrease response times and lapses in service delivery. AI can analyze traffic to detect anomalies and block malicious attempts to enter the network. It is taking center stage in network management.

Edge Computing

Edge computing can complement SD-WAN in optimizing network bandwidth, as cloud applications strain network capacity. It's a way to transfer smaller data processing tasks from the cloud to end-user devices. This can free up the bandwidth and processing power of the cloud for larger workloads. Besides, bringing data processing closer to the users allows networks to respond quickly to their service requests.

Networking as a Service (NaaS)

As organizations continue to adopt cloud-based services such as SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS, it is only natural that a similar network offering develops as well. This led to the concept of Network as a Service (NaaS), where networking vendors offer network infrastructure to organizations as a service and charge them for using it. It will change how organizations acquire, deliver, and manage their networks. With NaaS, external vendors manage networks, removing the burden of patching, updating, and troubleshooting networks for internal IT. Besides, it can offer added visibility and insights into the network through self-service portals.

Keeping Pace with Network Innovations

NaaS, along with other emerging technologies like 5G, Wi-Fi 6, and Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), will have big implications for the future of networking. While 5G and Wi-Fi 6 are focused on increasing the speed and flexibility of wireless networks, IPv6 is set to replace the traditional internet protocol addressing system to manage the explosion in the number of devices connecting to the Internet. As organizations forge ahead with digital transformation, evolving network technologies will be the key to success.

Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid cloud combines public and private clouds, and on-premise data centers to offer organizations the flexibility to move their workloads between these computing environments as per their scalability, security, compliance, service delivery, and cost requirements. They can gain near-unlimited scalability at a lower cost with the public cloud to run and manage applications as per the changes in user demands for the services. Private cloud and on-premise data centres can be used to run business-critical applications, support edge computing, keep highly sensitive data safe, and meet the increasingly stringent compliance requirements. Here are some of the benefits it affords to organizations:

• Migrate to the cloud at one’s own speed

  Hybrid cloud proves to be the best option for organizations to support their workload migration from on-premise data centers to the cloud at a pace that they are comfortable with.

• Improve security and compliance adherence

  With hybrid cloud, organizations get more control over their critical and sensitive data. They can choose the data that needs to be stored on private and public clouds to boost their data security and meet compliance requirements effectively.

• Optimize computing environment

  Organizations can leverage hybrid cloud to optimize their computing environment for every workload. They can retain simpler, business-critical workloads on-premise while hosting process complex workloads on the public cloud by easily adding more computational power as per the requirement.

• Support edge computing

  Organizations can bring data closer to the end devices such as kiosks, IoT sensors, autonomous vehicles, and others with hybrid cloud.

How to go about Network Transformation

Despite the network playing a critical role in organizations going digital, CIOs still struggle with transforming their traditional, hardware-based network to drive business innovations and growth. The good news is that they do not have to throw away their entire Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network and switch to the modern network overnight. There are multiple layers of networks that can be modernized at a time. Organizations can start with the low-hanging fruit, like moving to SD-WAN-based services. They can also bank on managed network service providers like Mphasis to modernize their networks and start reaping the benefits of digital transformation.

If you are a networking professional who shares our passion to build robust networks that help organizations succeed in their digital transformation initiatives, then apply now to #StayAhead: https://careers.mphasis.com/home.html