As-a-service offerings have been around for more than 10 years with roots that are decades older than that, and now this ever-expanding category of service offerings includes enterprise network-as-a-service.NaaS enables enterprises to outsource network functionality at network Layers 4-7—such as software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) and application delivery controller (ADC)—as well as Layers 1-3, which includes switches and routers.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
Full adoption of NaaS is still in its early days because most enterprise network functions require physical hardware to transport data to and from endpoints and the data center or internet. That is a challenge to deliver as a service. The Layer 4-7 functions are already available in a cloud-delivery model.To read this article in full, please click here
Deploying and operating applications in multiple public clouds is critical to many IT leaders, and networking software can help.Migrating applications to cloud infrastructure requires scale, performance, and, importantly, automation. But achieving them all can be challenging due to limited visibility into that infrastructure and the fact that each IaaS platform has proprietary controls for networking and security that can make multicloud operations highly manual and therefore time consuming.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
As a result, IT teams can be challenged to quickly resolve application performance issues, protect against external attacks and reduce costs. Their goal should be to combine the agility of IaaS resources with the security, manageability and control of their physical network.To read this article in full, please click here
The marriage of networking and security into the secure-access service edge stands to improve application performance, reduce infrastructure complexity, and protect sensitive data, and as such SASE is an attractive architecture for enterprises large and small.Due to the newness of SASE offerings, though, providers are still building and refining the features of their services, so available offerings are complex, often incomplete and require integration with customer organizations’ existing network and security architectures.To read this article in full, please click here
The marriage of networking and security into the secure-access service edge stands to improve application performance, reduce infrastructure complexity, and protect sensitive data, and as such SASE is an attractive architecture for enterprises large and small.Due to the newness of SASE offerings, though, providers are still building and refining the features of their services, so available offerings are complex, often incomplete and require integration with customer organizations’ existing network and security architectures.To read this article in full, please click here
Moving away from VPNs as a means to protect corporate networks at the perimeter and moving toward zero-trust network access requires careful enterprise planning and may require implementing technologies that are new to individual organizations.ZTNA employs identity-based authentication to establish trust with entities trying to access the network and grants each authorized entity access only to the data and applications they require to accomplish their tasks. It also provides new tools for IT to control access to sensitive data by those entities that are deemed trusted.To read this article in full, please click here
Moving away from VPNs as a means to protect corporate networks at the perimeter and moving toward zero-trust network access requires careful enterprise planning and may require implementing technologies that are new to individual organizations.ZTNA employs identity-based authentication to establish trust with entities trying to access the network and grants each authorized entity access only to the data and applications they require to accomplish their tasks. It also provides new tools for IT to control access to sensitive data by those entities that are deemed trusted.To read this article in full, please click here
Microservices-style applications rely on fast, dependable network infrastructure in order to respond quickly and reliably, and the service mesh can be a powerful enabler.At the same time, service-mesh infrastructure can be difficult to deploy and manage at scale and may be too complex for smaller applications, so enterprises need to carefully consider its potential upsides and downsides in relation to their particular circumstances.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
What is a service mesh?
A service mesh is infrastructure software that provides fast and reliable communications between the microservices that applications may need. Its networking features include application identification, load balancing, authentication, and encryption. To read this article in full, please click here
Microservices-style applications rely on fast, dependable network infrastructure in order to respond quickly and reliably, and the service mesh can be a powerful enabler.At the same time, service-mesh infrastructure can be difficult to deploy and manage at scale and may be too complex for smaller applications, so enterprises need to carefully consider its potential upsides and downsides in relation to their particular circumstances.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
What is a service mesh?
A service mesh is infrastructure software that provides fast and reliable communications between the microservices that applications may need. Its networking features include application identification, load balancing, authentication, and encryption. To read this article in full, please click here
Many edge-computing deployments are driven by very specific needs, but since new needs may arise down the road with a different set of edge requirements, IT leaders should adopt edge-computing architectures with flexibility and adaptability in mind.The fact that all edge-computing systems have certain things in common – complex combinations of hardware, applications, infrastructure software and networking – doesn’t mean they should all have the same design.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
Every new project requires highly specialized software and integrated custom networking to deliver on project goals across such diverse applications as industrial control, autonomous transportation, health services, public safety and energy management. Each use case will have its unique requirements in terms of performance, response times, quantity of data to be gathered and processed, and cost.To read this article in full, please click here
The future of remote work has arrived.With the work-at-home mandates triggered by COVID-19 quarantines, businesses have adapted on-the-fly to create remote-networking environments that maintain corporate security. Largely, they have done so by expanding traditional remote access solutions including VPN infrastructure and services, virtual desktop infrastructure, secure Wi-Fi access points and even SD-WAN for home use.To read this article in full, please click here
Combining 4G and 5G cellular services with SD-WAN can give enterprise IT pros connectivity options that are faster than wired alternatives such as MPLS and that provide benefits including rapid provisioning, improved reliability and more bandwidth for less money.Branch offices, which are undergoing dramatic changes in the amount of traffic they generate and where that traffic goes, can particularly benefit from 4G and 5G, and one enabler is software-defined WAN.To read this article in full, please click here
Combining 4G and 5G cellular services with SD-WAN can give enterprise IT pros connectivity options that are faster than wired alternatives such as MPLS and that provide benefits including rapid provisioning, improved reliability and more bandwidth for less money.Branch offices, which are undergoing dramatic changes in the amount of traffic they generate and where that traffic goes, can particularly benefit from 4G and 5G, and one enabler is software-defined WAN.To read this article in full, please click here
Cloud services that provide both network and security intelligence are gaining popularity because they are easy to consume and they improve agility. Similarly, a model known as SD-Branch is providing network and security functionality at the WAN edge on a single platform.Both of these trends have contributed to the development by Gartner of a network architecture known as the secure-access service edge or SASE, which “converges network (for example, software-defined WAN) and network security services (such as [secure web gateways], [cloud access security brokers] and firewall as a service).” SASE (pronounced “sassy”) would primarily be delivered as a cloud-based service, Gartner says.To read this article in full, please click here
Cloud services that provide both network and security intelligence are gaining popularity because they are easy to consume and they improve agility. Similarly, a model known as SD-Branch is providing network and security functionality at the WAN edge on a single platform.Both of these trends have contributed to the development by Gartner of a network architecture known as the secure-access service edge or SASE, which “converges network (for example, software-defined WAN) and network security services (such as [secure web gateways], [cloud access security brokers] and firewall as a service).” SASE (pronounced “sassy”) would primarily be delivered as a cloud-based service, Gartner says.To read this article in full, please click here
The market for SD-WAN remains white hot with distributed organizations widely deploying the technology to solve WAN bandwidth limitations, provide reliability/resiliency and improve quality of user experience for cloud-based applications.Dozens of suppliers are rapidly innovating and maturing their SD-WAN products with innovations in cloud onramps, support for leading SaaS applications, security and management/automation platforms.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
Here are six top issues to evaluate as SD-WAN moves to its 2.0 phase and beyond during 2020.To read this article in full, please click here
Despite the clear cost benefits, white-box switches outfitted with independent network operating systems (NOS) solutions have seen only limited adoption in leading enterprise IT shops. That’s due to the lack of a clear market leader, implementation challenges and concerns about service and support that have steered IT pros toward traditional, branded-box Ethernet switches instead.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
But maturing technology and new support alliances are making white-box switches an attractive alternative for greenfield deployments and for infrastructure that’s being upgraded to give performance boosts to data centers, campuses and branch offices.To read this article in full, please click here
Despite the clear cost benefits, white-box switches outfitted with independent network operating systems (NOS) solutions have seen only limited adoption in leading enterprise IT shops. That’s due to the lack of a clear market leader, implementation challenges and concerns about service and support that have steered IT pros toward traditional, branded-box Ethernet switches instead.[Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters.]
But maturing technology and new support alliances are making white-box switches an attractive alternative for greenfield deployments and for infrastructure that’s being upgraded to give performance boosts to data centers, campuses and branch offices.To read this article in full, please click here
The promise of SD-Branch is that by collapsing network functionality in branch offices to a unified platform, enterprises can reap benefits in speed of deployment, ease of operation and cost. Since Wi-Fi is a critical piece of local area communications for many branch sites, improved integration, security and management of Wi-Fi is becoming increasingly important to evaluating the benefits of SD-Branch solutions.In branch offices, connected LAN devices and applications must be linked to the Internet via SD-WAN services. By integrating LAN and WAN connectivity, SD-WAN helps to simplify network management with a unified platform as compared to each function having its own unique management console.To read this article in full, please click here
While cellular wireless is often thought of as a carrier service, IT organizations can benefit from deploying private 4G LTE technology to complement or even replace Wi-Fi and for specific use cases such as supporting IoT devices that generate large data sets and that are spread out over large areas.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
While cellular wireless is often thought of as a carrier service, IT organizations can benefit from deploying private LTE technology to complement or even replace Wi-Fi and for specific use cases such as supporting IoT devices that generate large data sets and that are spread out over large areas.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
Lee Doyle