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Monthly Archives: April 2019
ITV and Google Cloud partner to fortify streaming capabilities
2 Apr, 2019
ITV has created an analytics tool with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) called CROCUS which provides real-time feedback on live audiences comprising of millions of people – something that previously took anywhere between ten minutes to over a day.
Because ITV experienced its biggest ever audience in the summer of 2018, in some cases breaking the 27 million mark, getting quick feedback on audience viewing habits was critical to keeping the audience levels that high but it was made difficult with its previous analytics tool.
The CROCUS tool was created and implemented within three months while “at other major broadcasters, switching analytics tools is taking more than a year” explained Andy Burnett, director of direct to consumer technology and operations at ITV.
“We now do data analytics like no other broadcaster, because we’ve built it all ourselves, for ourselves, without worrying about infrastructure,” he added.
The tool uses managed services that scale automatically to match the unpredictable demand of an online video-on-demand platform. Data from viewers queued in Cloud Pub/Sub and then fed into Cloud Dataflow for transformation into more digestible data ready for presentation.
It’s important for the tool to be scalable because certain programmes can receive unpredictable levels of online traffic. Citing England’s semi-final in the World Cup with Croatia, Simon Forman, head of behavioural data engineering at ITV said that it had one million viewers watching the match from ITV hub which was many more times than previously recorded for a live broadcast.
Forman said that ITV’s analysts were hesitant to make the switch. “Our analysts were very attached to their own set of analytics tools, which they wanted to use on top of BigQuery,” he said. “But after a while, they began querying data directly through BigQuery itself. It’s easy to use and fast on complex queries, and they use Google Data Studio to display results.”
ITV uses audience analytics to measure how well the broadcast is doing. Forman said that there is usually an easily-identifiable traffic profile for each show. For example, football games have big audiences but drop off at half-time to make snacks, then it returns to high levels. Love Island also had a unique profile and if the analytics didn’t match the profile, ITV knew something was wrong.
ITV’s view for the future is to bring the analytics from its TV audience, which eclipses its online audience by a huge margin, and use the same tool it used for ITV Hub to personalise and improve the broadcasts for core viewers of its TV programmes.
SD-WAN and cloud: A marriage made in heaven or a match made in hell?
Paul Stuttard, director of Duxbury Networking, argues in South African online magazine IT Web that SD-WAN is a marriage made in heaven. Why? SD-WAN technology has the ability to optimise the cloud, while speeding up access to cloud-based applications, he claims. Stuttard further explains that just 10 years ago organisations were advised to prepare for the impact of cloud computing on their networks.
“Planning, they were told, was all-important,” he writes. “Before running significant applications in the cloud, it was vital to understand how data is sourced and stored. End-users were also warned about large-scale commitments to cloud technology and encouraged to plan and execute a carefully managed transition to the cloud.
“Fast forward 10 years. The cloud, once a disrupter in the IT firmament, has now matured, boosting the capabilities of IT departments across the globe in the process. Now the cloud is seen as a vehicle for innovation on a number of fronts.”
Facilitating digital business
“More specifically, the cloud is now facilitating digital business and, in parallel, promoting a new generation of scalable, agile solutions,” Stuttard adds. “Researchers predict the global public cloud market, expected to be worth $178 billion this year, will grow at a significant 22% per annum fuelled by global enterprises' drive to adopt digital transformation strategies.”
Such is the pace of digital transformation that he cites Mike Harris, executive vice president of research at Gartner, who believes the challenge that most organisations face today is their ability to keep up with the pace of ongoing developments. He says this requires them to constantly adapt and prepare their business and IT strategies for radical digital transformation, the all-cloud future, and the for progressive change – or what Gartner calls the ‘continuous next.’
Cloudy limitations
“One of the hard facts organisations will have to face when coming to terms with the continuous next is that traditional wide area network (WAN) architectures are not designed to support new cloud-based consumption models,” Stuttard adds. “Wasted bandwidth, higher data packet loss, increased latency, elevated inefficiency levels and, most importantly, higher operational costs, await organisations that opt for this hybrid solution.”
So, in Stuttard’s opinion, this is where SD-WANs step in. However, while SD-WAN is a capable technology, it doesn’t quite mitigate the issues of network and latency or help reduce packet loss, in a way that WAN data acceleration can achieve, according to David Trossell, CEO and CTO of Bridgeworks.
Valid points
Trossell neither agrees or disagrees with Stuttard’s assessment.“He has some valid points regarding legacy WAN, latency, packet loss, wasted bandwidth, and their related costs. However, I disagree with his view that legacy WANs are not designed for cloud-based models and he fails to say that latency packet loss and wasted bandwidth are also present in SD-WANs.” However, he still agrees that latency and packet loss are the cause of poor ROI from many WAN installations.
The thing is, he claims, SD-WANs “don’t fix the problem of latency or packet loss. However, they can lower costs and layer different WAN requirements over different WAN links. The cost reduction comes from using broadband instead of expensive MPLS (which are meant to be low latency)”. He nevertheless agrees that latency and packet loss are the cause of poor ROI from many WAN installations.
The problem with SD-WANs on their own appears to be that, while they can segregate data over different paths to maximise the best use of the WAN connections, they are still left with the underlying problems of latency. However, they can be enhanced with a WAN data acceleration overlay, which can mitigate the effects of latency and packet loss with machine learning and by using parallelisation techniques.
Overly simplified
Trossell believes that Stuttard “has simplified the argument too much because many of the cost savings from SD-WAN come from the use of broadband. “These tend to have much more latency and packet loss”, he explains while noting that data comes from a multitude of sources – including Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the web, [and] social media.
He suggests it’s important to remember that data may not always involve a traditional data centre, as it is possible to manage and store data in the cloud. This may lead to sanitised data or results. “The cloud is now rapidly becoming another storage tier extension for the data centre”, he remarks.
Trossell adds: “Cloud has allowed organisations to have that degree of separation between the wild west of the web with all its security issues and their datacentre. This has allowed them to drive innovation in the way they interact with their customers.”
Public sector drive
Businesses aren’t the only ones being affected by the thrust towards digital transformation. Public sector and government organisations are feeling the push too. Trossell says this is driven by two key factors: “First and foremost, there’s the need to reduce costs, the expectations of our 24 hours a day, always-on society. This may involve technologies, such as chatbots and live chat, to offer people an alternative to waiting hours in a telephone queue to resolve an issue they need to raise, or to pay for something.
“Like every technology, SD-WAN as a technology has its place, but like many technologies it will not totally displace the existing technology," Trussell concludes. "SD-WAN is gaining market share in countries that have low bandwidth and very costly WAN connections. However, there is a competitive open market for WAN connections, and so the cost of bandwidth is dropping rapidly, whilst the availability of higher gigabit networks is rising rapidly. This could limit the expansion of SD-WANs.”
With this potential limit in mind, it may be time for organisations to look at how they can really reduce the impact of network latency and of pack loss. The answer may not come from a large vendor, nor from WAN optimisation, and so adding a WAN data acceleration layer to SD-WANs might be the answer to allow faster data flows with mitigated latency and packet loss. This, with the cloud in mind, could really be a marriage made in heaven – a cost-effective and long-lasting one, too.
Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their experiences and use-cases? Attend the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.
UK Cloud Awards 2019 shortlist revealed
3 Apr, 2019
The Cloud Industry Forum has today revealed its shortlist of contenders for this year’s UK Cloud Awards, narrowing down hundreds of entries to just a few.
The awards, which first launched in 2014, are designed to celebrate innovation, entrepreneurialism and technical excellence within the UK’s cloud industry, with categories including data management, fintech, cyber security and UX, across both SMB and the enterprise.
Supported by Platinum sponsors ScienceLogic and CDW, the awards will be hosted at London County Hall on 16 May 2019.
“Entries for the UK Cloud Awards have improved year-on-year as the technology has continued to transform the business landscape,” said Jez Back, head judge of the UK Cloud Awards. “When we started the awards, cloud technology was in its infancy and companies had yet to realise the potential benefits that it has to offer. That is no longer the case and this year’s entries have emphasised the outstanding work that vendors, suppliers and individuals have contributed to the UK cloud market.”
He added that the volume and quality of the entries made for “some extremely difficult judging decisions” and that all those shortlisted “should be proud of their efforts”.
“I would like to wish everyone that has made the cut the best of luck and look forward to celebrating on the night itself,” said Back.
The CIF, a non-profit membership trade body, was first established in 2009 to help support the development of the UK cloud industry. Since its inception, the CIF has acted as a platform to discuss and engage with the wider cloud supplier community, holding regular media and customer events, including an annual awards ceremony, and producing whitepapers on the state of the industry.
Alex Hilton, CEO of the Cloud Industry Forum, said that the quality of this year’s entries had particularly impressed the panel of expert judges.
“These awards were established to highlight innovation and achievement in the British cloud computing sector, benchmarking the amazing cloud leadership in the UK. I’m pleased to report that this year’s entries have well and truly delivered on all fronts.
“A big thank you is owed to everyone who has supported us this year, not least our Platinum sponsors CDW and ScienceLogic, and Award sponsors Fujistu, Navisite, and TechData, without which these awards wouldn’t be possible,” added Hilton. “I would like to congratulate everyone that has been shortlisted and let everyone know that the process of choosing the winners is going to be the most challenging decision yet.”
The shortlist for the UK Cloud Awards 2019 is as follows:
BEST-IN-CLASS
Most Innovative Enterprise Product
- Business Planning Cloud from Adaptive Insights
- Cloud Business Management from Apptio
- Cloe from Densify
- Wdesk from Workiva
Most Innovative SMB Product
- Breathe HR
- Micro from Clear Books
- Dropbox Business from Dropbox
- GoSimple Tax
- ERP v18.3 from Priority Software
- Xero
- Nebula from Zyxel Communications
Best Cloud Platform Solution
- Cloud Business Management from Apptio
- CloudManager from CloudM
- Partner Insights from intY
- Innovative Cloud Solution with Manchester United and HCL
- Notting Hill Genesis and Amido
- SuiteCloud from Oracle NetSuite
- Call Manager from Sesui
- Wdesk from Workiva
Cyber or Security Product or Service
- USM Anywhere from AlienVault
- Darktrace Cloud from Darktrace
- Cyber Resilience from Mimecast
- N2WS, a Veeam Company
- ThreatDetect from Redscan
- OnDMARC from Red Sift
- Cloud Workload Protection Suite from Symantec
- iCS Protect from Tollring
Best FinTech Product or Service
- Micro from Clear Books
- Float
- Zoho Books from Zoho
Best AI/ML Enabled Product or Service
- Threat Intelligence Service from Exabeam
- Anna talkbot from HansaWorld
- InfoSight from Hewlett Packard Enterprise
- SaneBox
- Data Science from SnapLogic
Best Data Management Product or Service
- Cloud Data Services from Pure Storage
- QoreStor from Quest
- Zenko from Scality
- SL1 from ScienceLogic
- OneXafe from StorageCraft
- Availability Suite from Veeam
Best Cloud Enabled End User Experience
- Meetings Platform from BlueJeans
- Citrix Workspace
- Bria Teams from CounterPath Corporation
- Dropbox Business from Dropbox
- Natterbox
- Johnny mobility bot from Tangoe
BEST DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION PROJECTS
Public Sector Project/3rd Sector Project
- MTCnovo in partnership with Cloud Fundamental
- City & Guilds Group in partnership with Ensono
- Notting Hill Genesis in partnership with Amido
- Financial Conduct Authority in partnership with Sopra Steria
- St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust in partnership with UKCloud Ltd
Private Sector Enterprise Project
- AMT Coffee in partnership with Charterhouse
- The Disabilities Trust in partnership with CDW
- Manchester United in partnership with HCL
- Sky in partnership with Dell Boomi
Private Sector SMB Project
- Media Matters in partnership with Chalkline
- Small Luxury Hotels in partnership with Chalkline
Best DevOps & Functions-as-a-Service Implementation
- Gridz
- HeleCloud
- Lloyds Banking Group
BEST-IN-CLASS CLOUD SERVICE PROVIDERS
Best Cloud Service Provider
- 8×8
- Box
- iland
- RingCentral
- UKCloud Ltd
- Workiva
Best Cloud Managed Service Provider
- ANS Group
- CANCOM
- CDW
- TechQuarters
- Unify Communications Ltd
Cloud Migration Partner/Technical Collaboration Project
- Ancoris at Lush
- Cloud Technology Solutions at Homeserve
- Ensono at Guinness World Records
ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
Best Newcomer of the Year
- James Moran, solution architect at Trustmarque
- Myles Clarke, product manager at Cloud Gateway
Cloud Visionary of the Year
- Chris Dunning at TechQuarters
- Dan Scarfe at NewSignature
- Dave Strong at Sopra Steria
- Julian Dyer at Cobweb
- Simon Ratcliffe at Ensono
Gartner and Synergy studies show continued cyclical cloud spend
The cloud industry continues to go up and up – both in terms of global public cloud revenue and spending on data centre hardware and software.
Those are the key findings from two separate research studies, from Gartner and Synergy Research respectively.
Gartner found the worldwide public cloud services market is set to hit $214.3 billion (£164.1bn) in 2019, up 17.5% from the previous year. The primary category will remain SaaS – or cloud application services as Gartner puts it – expecting to account for almost $95bn of that figure this year and $143.7bn by 2022. Yet the fastest growing category will be infrastructure as a service (IaaS), almost doubling in revenue between 2019 and 2022.
In total, SaaS contributes 44% of overall spending today, with cloud business process services (BPaaS) at 23%, IaaS at 18% and platform as a service (PaaS) at 8.8%. Gartner predicts SaaS’ share to be broadly similar by 2022 at 43%, while IaaS rises to 23%, and PaaS at 9.6%.
“At Gartner, we know of no vendor or service provider today whose business model offerings and revenue growth are not influenced by the increasing adoption of cloud-first strategies in organisations,” said Sid Nag, research vice president at Gartner. “What we see now is only the beginning, though. Through 2022, Gartner projects the market size and growth of the cloud services industry at nearly three times the growth of overall IT services.”
Synergy, meanwhile, found that worldwide spend on data centre hardware and software grew by 17% last year. The continued demand for public cloud services is driving this spend, with more extensive server configurations ramping up enterprise selling prices. Public cloud demand grew 30% while private cloud – or cloud-enabled – went up 23%. For traditional ‘non-cloud’ there was no change year on year.
Looking at the runners and riders, Dell EMC and Cisco took the top two slots in the vendor space for public cloud, with HPE and Huawei tied for third. Original design manufacturers (ODM) account for the most market share. In private cloud, Dell EMC again came out on top, ahead of Microsoft and HPE tied for silver, and Cisco.
“Cloud service revenues continue to grow by almost 50% per year, enterprise SaaS revenues are growing by 30%, search [and] social networking revenues are growing by almost 25%, and eCommerce revenues are growing by over 30% – all of which are helping to drive big increases in spending on public cloud infrastructure,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy.
“We are also now seeing some reasonably strong growth in enterprise data centre infrastructure spending, with the main catalysts being more complex workloads, hybrid cloud requirements, increased server functionality and higher component costs,” Dinsdale added. “We are not seeing much unit volume growth in enterprise, but vendors are benefiting from substantially higher average selling prices.”
These two research reports show that cloud spending is a virtuous circle. Organisations feel an increasing demand for cloud services and adoption; this revenue implores greater capex from the vendors in their infrastructure; and this in turn leads to higher data centre hardware and software spending in general.
“Organisations need cloud-related services to get onboarded onto public clouds and to transform their operations as they adopt public cloud services,” added Nag. “As cloud continues to become mainstream within most organisations, technology product managers for cloud-rated service offerings will need to focus on delivering solutions that combine experience and execution with hyperscale providers’ offerings.”
Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their experiences and use-cases? Attend the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.
What to expect at NetSuite SuiteWorld 2019
31 Mar, 2019
The tag line for this year’s SuiteWorld conference in Las Vegas is ‘Grow beyond.’ What that means, precisely, we will find out in the next few days.
“SuiteWorld is Oracle NetSuite’s annual celebration of customers, business leaders, and partners who run remarkable businesses through the power of the NetSuite platform,” the website proclaims.
“This marks our ninth year of bringing together the NetSuite community and we will be showcasing why our customers grow beyond the expected – and how they have grown to be exceptional leaders in their industry.”
It’s two years, roughly speaking, since I last attended NetSuite’s annual US conference in person, and just under three years since Oracle confirmed it was acquiring the cloud company.
Quite a lot has changed in that time. Although, in speaking to some of the execs pre-conference, in some senses, not much has changed at all… There’s still a laser focus on customer and partner success, in addition to international expansion. Those focus areas were always on the radar for NetSuite before its Oracle parentage.
However, what has become clear is the ability to execute on those plans and turn them from vision to reality not just at pace, but at scale, too. That’s what Oracle brings to the table. Largely hands-off in terms of day-to-day running and look-and-feel, the clout the cloud giant offers has helped transform NetSuite’s ability to realise its potential.
While it would be unbecoming of a cloud company to give too much away before the main event, we can expect the usual slew of updates about NetSuite’s roadmap and what customers can expect going forward. We’re also expecting a big focus on its channel ecosystem if the pre-event announcement is anything to go by.
In particular, the company has unveiled its aims for partners to be as successful as customers are. Akin to its SuiteSuccess customer programme, it hopes to achieve this for partners with its newly announced SuiteLife programme.
At present, NetSuite boasts more than 550 partners across 85 countries. It has ambitious expansion plans so needs a partner programme that is fit for purpose.
“With SuiteLife, new partners will be able to start selling and delivering NetSuite to customers in only 90 days, while existing partners will benefit from innovative new offerings to expand their NetSuite practice and amplify their growth,” the company claims.
“The rate at which customers are moving ERP to the cloud is at an all-time high and our partner ecosystem plays a critical role in helping us meet this demand,” said Craig West, vice president of alliances and channels, Oracle NetSuite.
“By making it easier than ever for partners to join, succeed and grow in the NetSuite ecosystem, we are putting the power of the NetSuite platform into the hands of more organisations across the world. With NetSuite, organisations gain the visibility and control needed to navigate complexities and accelerate growth while NetSuite partners capitalise on the generational transition to the cloud.”
Outside of the partner focus, we’re expecting a raft of customer case studies and the usual celebs talking about how the cloud is helping them do what they do in their given industry and, thus, can help other sectors, too.
Stay tuned for all the news and views coming out of SuiteWorld this week…
Equifax and FICO launch Data Decision Cloud
2 Apr, 2019
Equifax and FICO have teamed up to offer the Data Decisions Cloud to businesses, a risk management and marketing suite focused on offering improved customer experiences for financial organisations.
The service brings together Equifax Ignite data and analytics platform with FICO Cloud applications and the FICO Decision Management Suite (DMS) to help businesses analyse different data points, uncover new insights and build predictive models to lead the development of new customer services.
It will streamline the way customers interact with financial institutions and reduce operating costs by introducing better transparency into organisations.
“We are energized about this broad partnership between Equifax and FICO. Two industry leaders are joining forces to help financial institutions better meet the needs of consumers and improve business agility,” said Mark W. Begor, CEO of Equifax.
“Our partnership will seamlessly integrate Equifax’s differentiated data assets and Ignite platform with FICO’s market-leading cloud based decisioning software and applications.”
The end-to-end development platform will enable businesses to explore opportunities, test and deploy apps and services within their organisation.
It will lead the way to three other joint developments, including a connected platform to create new predictive data technologies, A compliance-as-a-service product to support anti-money laundering schemes and a pre-screen marketing automation platform to develop FCRA-compliant campaigns.
“Our common mission is to empower financial institutions to leverage data-driven decisioning in all their customer interactions,” said William J. Lansing, CEO of FICO.
“With this strategic partnership, FICO and Equifax will help organizations operationalize the best data with unparalleled predictive analytics and applied AI, and do so in a streamlined and cost-effective way.”
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The cloud migration landscape: Multi-cloud and hybrid battle for supremacy as security remains key
A new study from data virtualisation provider Denodo makes for an interesting snapshot of where cloud migration trends sit today, with security remaining top of mind and hybrid and multi-cloud architectures key.
The findings of the study, which surveyed more than 200 business executives and IT professionals, would not have come as a major surprise to regular readers of this publication. Perhaps some of the figures may have been a little on the low side. 36% of organisations polled said they were currently in the process of migrating workloads to the cloud, with almost 20% saying they were in the advanced stages of implementation.
46% of those polled said they leveraged a hybrid cloud model, with private cloud (33.6%), multi-cloud (32.6%) and public cloud (31.6%) all polling similarly. Cost optimisation (54%) the most frequently cited motivating factor for multi-cloud, ahead of securing a best in breed offering (45%) – with echoes to a recent Turbonomic study – and avoiding vendor lock-in (38%).
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure were the clear one-two when it came to most widely used providers, polling 67% and 60% of the vote respectively. Google Cloud, cited by 26% of respondents, trailed.
When it came to security, more than half (52%) of respondents cited it as a key concern, ahead of managing and tracking cloud spend (44%) and a lack of cloud skills (31%). In one statistic that may have gone against the usual trend, Docker – cited by 31% of those polled – was the most popular container technology ahead of Kubernetes (21%).
Naturally, given its heritage, Denodo advocates data virtualisation – where applications can retrieve and manipulate data without knowing where it is located or how it is formatted – as a tool to help organisations manage the complexity of their multi-cloud workloads.
“While organisations continue to adopt cloud solutions at a fast pace, they soon realise that the migration of critical enterprise information resources is a challenge due to today’s complex, big data landscape,” said Ravi Shankar, Denodo chief marketing officer. “Using data virtualisation, businesses alleviate these pain points by building a data services architecture that allows them to gain the maximum benefits from their data and take advantage of cloud modernisation, analytics and hybrid data fabric.”
You can read the full report here (email required).
Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their experiences and use-cases? Attend the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.
What is SD-WAN and how can it help your business?
1 Apr, 2019
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that data has turned every organisation on its head. Driven by a simultaneous explosion in cloud computing, network sophistication and general connectivity, there has been unprecedented growth over the past several years in both the amount of data the average business generates and its ability to capture and analyse that data.
Now, even small businesses rely on mining the data they collect for intelligence and insights. Combine that with the proliferation of cloud-based and internet-connected tools used by companies, and you’re faced with a problem. All of that data has to be sent into, out of and through your corporate network, which can lead to bottlenecks in more traditionally-configured networks as businesses grow.
Networking is a notoriously temperamental part of enterprise IT, and is often one of the most time-consuming and frustrating elements to troubleshoot. Configuring business wide area network elements to handle a new service or to address a fault usually involves manually issuing commands to each router in the network individually, which can take weeks or even months depending on the size and geographical locations of the network and the complexity of the change.
One new technology in particular has been mooted as a potential solution to this problem; software-defined wide area networking, otherwise known as SD-WAN. SD-WAN has a number of advantages over older types of wide area network configurations and enterprises are starting to roll it out within their organisations, with a study from network monitoring company SevOne indicating that around half of respondents had active SD-WAN projects in place.
SD-WAN uses the technologies and principles of cloud computing to make managing WANs far less painful. It achieves this by decoupling the data plane from the control plane and centralising the management and configuration of the WAN itself through a single cloud-based console. This means that bandwidth can be dynamically shared throughout the WAN, and remotely re-allocated rather than having to be reconfigured at the local network level by an on-site engineer. SD-WAN can prioritise bandwidth allocation based on need, elastically scaling a network’s bandwidth up and down as needed.
This is the biggest difference between traditional WAN models and SD-WAN: all of the management and configuration of the network can be done remotely from a single management console. This makes provisioning a new branch or office quicker and easier compared to regular WAN. Rather than having to send a network technician down to the site to set up and configure the new office’s network in person, the IT team can use their usual management console to set it up according to predefined policies and rules, provisioning and configuring new equipment at the push of a button.
This is a huge timesaver for branch staff as well as sysadmins, as it means that all they need to do when they have a piece of networking equipment that needs replacing is take it out of the box and plug it in. Instead of having to wait for a technician to come and get it set up, it can be onboarded almost instantaneously. This means quicker time-to-value from new IT hardware and less hassle for your staff as they’re left to do their jobs without worrying about setting up networking infrastructure.
Business agility also benefits from SD-WAN, particularly when it comes to expansion. Getting the network up and running no longer has to be a bottleneck when opening a new location — just ship the equipment to the new building, and the aforementioned remote provisioning will ensure that it’s set up quickly and painlessly. It aids digital transformation in a similar fashion, allowing businesses to quickly adopt mobile devices, cloud collaboration tools and other transformative technologies without having to put hundreds of hours into making sure the network can support them.
SD-WAN can also help reduce your operational costs in a number of areas. Removing the need for an on-site technician when altering or troubleshooting a network takes travel time and costs out of the equation, making your network engineers more efficient. By the same token, using pre-set templates and profiles means a small, centralised team of network administrators can take care of network operations for a wide geographic area, reducing the need for local technicians.
CIOs can save money on the connections themselves, too; SD-WAN allows them to reduce their reliance on expensive MPLS connections by bundling together bandwidth from standard commercial broadband packages, 4G connections and even satellite links. In addition, the software-defined nature of the technology means that it can be run using commodity hardware, rather than expensive proprietary equipment.
In addition to this, SD-WAN brings huge benefits to the reliability and quality of your connections. Because these networks are centrally controlled, the software can utilise automatic routing and handling rules to ensure that latency-sensitive applications like videoconferencing or VoIP tools always have as much bandwidth as they need to deliver smooth service. What’s more, the ability of SD-WAN to group multiple connection types together mean businesses can automatically failover to a secondary line if their main connection fails.
Not all SD-WAN solutions are created equal, however. While other providers can offer some or all of the advantages detailed above, Cisco’s SD-WAN products offer all of this plus a number of additional key benefits that other vendors do not. For example, Cisco’s SD-WAN toolkit includes advanced, real-time threat intelligence built into the network itself, as well as integrated enterprise firewall capabilities and security analytics. Cisco’s products also feature secure boot, runtime prevention and trust anchors, and all software is digitally signed.
Additionally, centralising the management and monitoring of the network means that it’s quicker and easier to identify hackers causing anomalous activity, and if they do get in, then micro-segmentation means that you can shut down their access to other parts of the network, preventing lateral movement once they’ve breached the perimeter.
Moreover, the vManage dashboard centralises network orchestration, monitoring and analytics, while its broad portfolio of SD-WAN hardware — including its ASR, ISR and vEdge routers – can support multiple deployment configurations, from cloud to branch to edge. Similarly the Cisco Meraki MX Security Appliances managed by the Meraki Dashboard offers a cloud-managed SD-WAN solution.
SD-WAN technology can be deeply transformative for many types of businesses from fast-growing or acquisitive to large, established and complex networks, and Cisco is the ideal partner to help deploy it. As one of the oldest and established networking providers in the world, whatever your business environment, Cisco has the technical expertise and platform capabilities to enable and accelerate your organisation’s SD-WAN transformation.
Discover more about Cisco’s SD-WAN solution and how it can transform your business