By any measure, a smoothly operating data network is a business essential; the typical unplanned network outage, which lasts an average of 95 minutes, now costs upwards of $740,000 — and more than 80% of that cost is due to business disruption, forsaken revenue, and loss of end-user productivity.
Yet every enterprise’s data network is different. So what does it take to get your unique network services requirements right?
In my last post, I pointed out the sorts of pressures today’s competitive needs place on your customers’ network services — hassles related to application workloads, network performance, security, compliance, and more.
At first glance, these may seem like patchwork problems to be addressed with patchwork solutions. But they may also signal deeper issues that, with a closer look, bring you face to face with the (often legacy) limitations of your customer’s data network.
If you’ve been stalling about data network upgrades while also planning to expand your use of cloud services, mobile capabilities (especially corporate wifi), voice-over-IP (now present in two thirds of enterprises, according to one study ), and video streaming, you might want to rethink the order in which you proceed .
That’s because these sorts of capabilities require network services that just weren’t needed before. Without the right networking capabilities, your cloud, wifi, and VoIP efforts may well stall.
In my last post, I wrote about the crucial role network services play in underpinning cloud and managed services — and notably in enabling your technology services provider to wield a mix of customizable services they can tailor specifically to your business’s needs.
As you migrate more and more of your data to cloud environments, you’ve probably noticed a couple of things:
1 Data gravity
It’s not your imagination: as you’ve embraced cloud computing, the data still outside your cloud(s) really does get pulled toward applications running in your cloud(s).
As cloud and managed services play a larger and larger role in your customers’ IT operations, the state of their network services, which underpin these more visible cloud and managed services, is likely to become an issue — if it hasn’t already.
After all, your customers’ networks must accommodate new business-essential demands like secure application delivery, mobile user access, and end user authentication. These demands on networks often designed for earlier eras with earlier technologies can trigger problems related to network performance, application workloads, security and compliance, monitoring and management, and, as always, cost.
And when that happens, your customers will be calling you seeking a right-now-hurry-up fix.
