Agility, scalability, flexibility for today’s demands
When enterprises scrambled to support newly remote workers in 2020, they did so by any means necessary. Now they’re looking for longer-term IT solutions to support hybrid workforces and a still-expanding array of cloud services. That’s one reason IT leaders surveyed for Foundry’s “State of the CIO Study 2022” have put improving IT operations and systems performance at the top of their priority list. That priority is second only to enhancing security management. Modernizing infrastructure and applications rounded out the top three initiatives prioritized by survey respondents.
At the center of IT modernization efforts are the networks on which everything else depends. And the stakes are high. If network modernization initiatives fall short, enterprises risk bottlenecks. Agile, scalable wide-area networks (WANs) tailored to individual enterprise needs promise to help.
Adaptable networks
The need to meet growing bandwidth needs and support low-latency performance for apps and data analytics quickly outstrips the capabilities of legacy private networks, according to Simon McCaffery, senior director of Strategic Segments at Spectrum Enterprise.
“Organizations need to consider intelligent infrastructure implementations that make it easier to route different traffic types, optimize operational costs and performance today, and ensure that the network can rapidly scale to meet future needs as they increasingly rely on SaaS [software as a service], cloud, and edge to steer the business and better serve customers. They cannot afford to redesign it again in five years. The most precious — and scarce — resource that IT and infrastructure teams possess is time. Modernizing the WAN has to empower them to meet business needs faster, with less administrative overhead.”
They also have to allow for more configurations than the traditional hub-and-spoke setup that served enterprises well just a short time ago. In the recent past, networks had to support just a headquarters, its data center, and a few branch offices. Now every employee’s home is a potential branch office and the typical data center has expanded into multiple public and private clouds.
To support new IT realities, an enterprise needs a WAN optimized for its unique needs, according to McCaffery. Networks need to scale as needed to help organizations manage costs and meet the changing requirements of distributed workers. They also need to support a mixture of cloud and on-premises applications and data workloads.
Scalable solutions
According to McCaffery, the best network for a given organization will be far more than the sum of its parts. “It’s not just about the technology,” he says. “It’s not just about the features. It’s not just the boxes in the network. It’s about the flexibility to handle every traffic type, deliver the necessary performance, with diversity and built-in security. Perhaps most important, it’s about the people designing, implementing, and supporting it every day.”
The most effective network solutions support the unique environment of each organization, group, and enterprise as a whole. McCaffery says Spectrum Enterprise is uniquely suited to cater to those needs with tailored networks and managed services.
“What really makes a difference for customers is showing up, listening to them, and helping them design tailored solutions sized to each business.”
A tailored solution can make a crucial difference in an era when the only certainty is change and when workplaces, workforces, and business priorities are as unique as the organizations behind them.
Learn more about how a scalable network solution will make the difference in secure networking, performance, and control.