How to prepare your network services for the new abnormal?

Historically, networks were designed primarily to connect offices to data centres with while focusing on capacity, quality, resilience and security. With the move of applications and workloads to the Cloud coupled with the fact that users are no longer predominantly based in fixed locations, this approach is no longer appropriate.

Connecting users wherever they might be to applications and compute power, wherever that might be, in a flexible, secure manner is the future model.

This is reflected in the evolution of the supporting network services. For example, we have seen voice connectivity move from stand-alone PBXs to hosted VoIP to unified communications as a service (UCaaS) and contact centres as a service (CCaaS).  WAN services are increasingly deployed as Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN), with the control and orchestration function hosted in the Cloud and with greater use of internet services.  Network security is now also starting to move to the Cloud with services such as firewall as a service, cloud access security brokers, cloud proxy servers etc. We are seeing the rise of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architectures and zero trust networking.

Together, these represent the opportunity to move away from a fixed data centre and office centric networking model to a flexible and scalable architecture able to support multi-cloud and disparate user communities with secure and high performing connectivity. Commercially this marks a shift from heavily capex-based solutions to a much more opex-centric, pay-as-you-use models.

Whilst network services have been steadily evolving, the global pandemic hit very rapidly with large swathes of the workforce being displaced from offices and needing to work remotely. This impacted not only “standard” users, but also those with more complex needs such as contact centre agents or financial traders. Many short-term tactical solutions were needed, such as massive increases in remote access capacity and VPN licencing, shipping thousands of laptops out to the the newly remote workforce, and reliance on mobile phones for voice services. Some firms, typically those further along in their Cloud services journey, found this shift much less challenging.

The impact of corporate restructuring will be felt for many years. Moreover, the increasing global trading tensions, the increase in nationalism in certain countries, the steady increase in local, regional, and global regulations, and the increasing instability in global weather patterns are all contributors of the growing potential for disruptive events. Whilst the pandemic has had a significant global impact, we see this as indicative of an increasingly volatile business environment.

This is what we see as the new abnormal; where the future cannot be easily predicted and the need for organisations to be able to react and adapt rapidly is key.

Nearly all organisations have deployed some level of remote working solution to address the impact of the pandemic, however many solutions are tactical or sub-optimal in terms of performance or security. Waiting for the pandemic to pass and then unwinding the solutions and returning to “normal” fails to address the strategic need for flexibility and adaptability required to face the future.