Recent technology advances in the network space offer opportunities for organisations to reduce cost and optimise performance. Our experts provide some top-level guidance.
SD-WAN
SD-WAN is potentially one of the most exciting of the new network technologies, eliminating long lead times for set up of new sites, control over the applications which run across the network and the ability to use multiple access technologies to meet bandwidth demand. The vaunted benefits of SD-WAN are:- Lower complexity
- Greater business agility and responsiveness
- Increased application performance across the WAN
- Improved network visibility and control
- Micro-segmentation to enhance securityHowever, the technology is still relatively nascent and use cases thin on the ground. Nonetheless, decisions about next generation network architecture cannot be delayed indefinitely.
Network-on-Demand Services
A number of service providers are starting to offer network-on-demand services aimed at providing improved capability to handle changes to WAN services to respond quickly to dynamic requirements. Network-on-demand services address some of the pressing WAN problems when deploying and managing hybrid WANs, including:
- The long lead times required to make changes to network capacity
- The even longer lead times when adding new services and endpoints
- The high cost of overbuilding networks to mitigate long lead times.Amongst other factors, organisations that consider network on demand services will need to scrutinise if the price premium paid for the level of flexibility offered is of value and if billing unpredictability poses a problem for the enterprise networking budget.
Non-dedicated Public Transports
Traditionally networks have grown in a piecemeal fashion responding to point capacity issues which when regarded from a holistic point of view may not consider if the most cost-effective connections are being used or if other connections can be downgraded. To address this in part, topologies are being re-thought with options for lower cost non-dedicated public transports for non-critical traffic creating a hybrid WAN with fewer dedicated MPLS or lower capacity connections.
Zero-trust Networks
The zero trust networks IT security model is an approach that requires identification verification for every device and individual trying to access resources on the network irrespective of logical location i.e. sitting inside or outside of the network perimeter. The potential benefits extolled for zero trust networks include:
- It allows greater control/ management of the network by using micro-segmentation techniques to carve the infrastructure into smaller granular nodes
- The elimination of the threat of individuals within the network perimeter being granted more access than required or from employees whose access needs change due to changed job responsibilities, and
- It enables greater resilience to ongoing attacks by having the default position of denying access to resources.
Read more on this topic, including our advice on how organisations can reduce costs by 10-40% while increasing performance, and an award-winning Network Sourcing case study that saved the client €92M, on our Network Sourcing page here:
Coeus Consulting are holding a Network Sourcing webinar at 11-12 BST on the 29th September 2020, to find out more and to register please click here.
