The familiar network challenges that can no longer wait to be solved

Much ado has rightfully been made about how the year 2020 changed business forever. But I want to diverge from that topic to focus on the familiar fact that your enterprise network is not just the IT backbone of your business — it is your business. This is now more relevant than ever given that digital services have become a necessity in our increasingly touchless — and work-from-anywhere — world.

Even more familiar are the network challenges businesses are facing. I most often hear clients talk about two situations. One, bandwidth-heavy applications are prevalent and can slow legacy networks — and, therefore, slow down business. Two, the proliferation of applications and multi-cloud environments are inherently complex.

When we speak to clients about how we can partner with them to overcome these challenges, they often bring up the need to modernize their networks by deploying new solutions. Some have a vision of exactly which solutions they need, but prefer to migrate at their own pace. Others, who may have IT-lean staffs, want a partner to help them overcome familiar foes, but historically, they’ve waited to implement solutions due to budget constraints or lack of resources.

2020 has changed this. Organizations now have more urgency to solve the usual challenges because they need to support rapidly rising expectations for virtual and touchless customer and employee interactions. That’s why 2021 will be a year in which network modernization plans will be an inescapable priority. Where to begin?

Familiar foes meet their match

Year after year, hybrid WAN architecture has been hailed as the “next big thing” to solve complexity woes and give businesses the agility they need to face change fast.

But hybrid WAN solutions are just part of what’s needed to modernize networks. When these solutions are paired with robust network infrastructure from a reliable partner, familiar — and now pressing — challenges can be addressed.

Slow application performance

Bandwidth-heavy applications are the norm. I recently had a client tell me about his previous provider’s network: “It didn’t have enough bandwidth for a business with 60 people in two locations, and we were adding more and more applications,” he said. “Our employees would have to wait between every click, every action. I knew there was just no way they could be productive working like that.”

Problems like this are solved with advanced routing capabilities, which allow organizations to choose under what circumstances an application leverages the best-performing connection. They can also be solved with connectivity solutions such as our Ethernet and Dedicated Fiber Internet (DFI) services, which can be quickly scaled or deployed to meet increasing bandwidth demands.

We’ve invested billions over the last five years in new technology, network upgrades and our fiber backbone. This ensures that even when unpredictability is the norm, we can deliver exactly what clients need — reliable high-speed connectivity with enough capacity to support even the highest-bandwidth activities.

Network visibility and control

Once you set up the infrastructure that allows for scalability, you can focus on other pressing challenges, such as visibility and control, head on.

The proliferation of applications and multi-cloud environments are inherently complex, and traditional networking solutions provide little visibility into them.

Today, visibility — and more importantly, control — can be provided through centralized portals. This allows organizations to simplify provisioning of both virtual and physical network devices. Administrators can easily add devices to the network and configure settings via co-management functionality accessible through a cloud-based portal.

Partnership powers change

Modernizing a network on a tight timeline doesn’t have to be done alone. An experienced partner can help develop a roadmap, identify gaps and more. Because one thing’s for certain: To face whatever comes next, organizations must overcome familiar challenges with a modern, simplified network ready to adapt quickly to future demands.

Read our white paper highlighting results of a survey conducted with IDG to learn about the top technology investments enterprises are making to address challenges the pandemic has brought to the forefront.