Riding the wave

The adoption of cloud computing and applications on a multitude of smart end-devices continues to grow. This trend is outstripping network capacity, upgrades, and available bandwidth in South Africa. As the trend grows, businesses of all sizes will need to find ways to enable the new wave of computing capabilities.

In this tough economic climate, businesses also need to begin realising a return on the investments and capital expenditure that have been made in IT systems and applications. The current state of fixed-line and mobile broadband communications in this country means this can only be effectively achieved by unlocking these imposed bandwidth constraints through the use of network prioritisation and optimisation solutions.

To this end, many businesses and service providers have chosen to follow the route of caching and compressing everything that is carried over the company network. However, this approach means businesses are unable to prioritise the systems and data that are mission-critical to daily business operations.

Business should consider the adoption of a model that can identify the type of traffic being carried over the network, determine what is most important, and then prioritise that traffic to improve system efficiency. Such a model, which is supported by effective network optimisation, visibility, and control, enables companies to more effectively control the end-user experience and deliver a consistent quality of experience. This, in turn, enhances workforce productivity.

Additionally, of critical importance to both CIOs and CFOs is the so-called "future-proofing" of investments. The current trends of cloud, device adoption, and application abundance require administrators to constantly re-spec bandwidth needs, and upgrade network capacity and bandwidth to accommodate the volume of data traffic and applications that run over the network.

Optimising networks and prioritising traffic ensures the applications flagged as business-critical actually work, as this prevents network congestion that can impede mission-critical applications, thereby protecting important applications from recreational applications. It is only in an optimised network environment that the benefits of the application-based computing model can be realised.

Additionally, available bandwidth can be reprioritised, allowing businesses to do more with current infrastructure, extend the life of existing investments, or effectively accommodate new users or devices on the network without the need for further expansion.

By implementing such a network solution, a business can gain a deeper insight into the state of its network capacity and current capabilities, which will enable it to make more informed decisions about future needs.

Real-time reporting and performance metrics allow network administrators to see if the mission-critical applications that are running over the optimised network still require additional bandwidth to guarantee optimal performance. This informs decisions on capital expenditure and future upgrades, negating surprise and unplanned upgrades that impact on the bottom-line.

Optimising networks and prioritising traffic ensures the applications flagged as business-critical actually work.

An optimised network environment also gives companies a better chance of harnessing the power of technologies like unified communications and collaboration, and allows them to take advantage of key technology trends such as big data, cloud computing and the consumerisation of IT.

Should companies choose to embrace these trends in an effort to maintain competitiveness in the modern day tech-driven marketplace, spending some time focusing on the network will give them more control over the implementation and management of new technology. For instance, by having full control and optimisation of a network, and visibility into it, the types of applications being used on personal devices, and being accessed over the company network, can be controlled effectively, and the use of the applications that are most important to the business can be prioritised.

This means companies are not only able to accommodate the bring-your-own-device trend, but can guarantee quality of experience for end-users embracing it. The solution, therefore, becomes an enabler of this trend, not a limiting factor in its adoption, and can solve a number of the common headaches associated with it.

In terms of the big data trend, the sheer volumes of information that companies need to carry over the network for analysis is exploding, as data is drawn from social media, machine-to-machine applications, real-time consumer behaviour, mobility, and cloud computing.

This means big data analysis is not just about analysing large volumes of data, but also analysing more varieties of data. However, it is becoming an essential tool for companies that aim to improve the bottom-line through a deeper understanding of the market, customers and market trends. To harness the power of big data, network control, prioritisation, and optimisation is non-negotiable.

These trends are on the horizon. Companies need to have detailed visibility of application usage to prioritise data traffic, optimise networks, and enable these data-intensive technologies. This will allow companies to harness the power of the next wave of technology, and remain competitive in a rapidly changing local and global marketplace.