If you’ve gone through an MPLS to SD-WAN transition or simply operate a network with 100+ sites, you’ve likely undergone some form of “bulk” connectivity procurement in the past. Bulk procurement comes with drawbacks – complex RFP creation, tons of quoting to manage, lengthy contracting, and painfully complex installations. That said, I’ve found that IT leaders often espouse the benefits of bulk procurement. Why? The bulk discount! If you buy many circuits at once, you’ll end up with a lower price per Mbps on average…
The evolution of artificial intelligence, particularly the rise of large language models (LLMs) and deep learning, has created an immense demand for computational power primarily driven by GPUs. However, maximizing GPU efficiency requires a robust networking infrastructure that ensures minimal latency and zero packet loss. This post highlights the critical role of Data Center Bridging (DCB) with a focus on its two key components; Priority-based Flow Control (PFC) and Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) in achieving lossless and high-performance networks suitable for large-scale GPU deployments in…
For the past decade, IT leaders have driven innovation by migrating workloads to the cloud. But now, as AI, machine learning, and high-performance computing take center stage, infrastructure needs have shifted. Compute is no longer just about flexibility and scale—it’s about raw power, speed, and efficiency. And that’s where traditional cloud models are falling short. The Challenge: Cloud Isn’t Keeping Up With AI When cloud computing became mainstream, it promised elasticity and simplicity. But that promise is starting to break under the weight of generative…
In today’s digital-first world, the question for IT leaders isn’t if problems will arise—it’s how early you can spot them, and how fast you can resolve them. Yet despite massive investments in observability, ticketing platforms, AIOps solutions and automation, too many organizations remain stuck in firefighting mode—managing symptoms instead of solving root causes. It’s time to break the reactive cycle. With Cognitive AI Learning, IT teams can proactively identify and resolve recurring issues before they impact services. From Reactive Chaos to Proactive Control The traditional model of problem management is reactive…
The introduction of production level AI has become the trigger for IT organizations to re-evaluate their entire approach to providing business services across the organization. Decades of incremental growth using proprietary technologies in networking and compute is now being parked, in favor of fresh blank-canvas approaches to IT. And for the networking practitioners, it became clear that that original promise of seamless integration and single-vendor support came at a steep price – years of vendor lock-in, limited customization, missed capabilities, and greatly inflated costs. But…
The shift to cloud, SaaS, and hybrid work is no longer breaking news. What is surprising? How many IT and network teams are still trying to stitch together architectures that weren’t designed for today’s distributed world. Data is everywhere. Users are everywhere. Applications live across SaaS, public cloud, and private data centers. Yet too often, traditional network and security architectures can’t keep up, creating bottlenecks, security gaps, and user frustration. Modern SASE and SD-WAN architectures promise agility, resilience, and better performance, but only when they’re…
AI infrastructure is growing at an unprecedented pace. Enterprises are racing to build clusters of GPUs, scale up AI workloads, and modernize their data pipelines. Yet one critical layer is often overlooked in these initiatives: the network. While AI and data leaders focus on compute, storage, and models, the network quietly becomes the bottleneck. Traditional, static networks—built for legacy application traffic—can’t handle the dynamic, latency-sensitive, high-throughput demands of distributed AI workloads. And without visibility, orchestration, and automation across the full stack, enterprise IT leaders are…
Lightyear’s new report highlights telecom industry and pricing trends observed in its proprietary dataset, illustrating how these factors may impact enterprise IT infrastructure strategies. Lightyear, the leading provider of enterprise telecom management software, release its highly anticipated 2025 State of Connectivity Report. This comprehensive report utilizes Lightyear’s proprietary dataset to provide timely insights on telecom industry and pricing trends. “We at Lightyear are rethinking the enterprise telecom experience from first principles, and a significant component of doing so involves helping enterprises better inform telecom decisions with…
As technology progresses and permeates all facets of modern life, the sophistication and scale of cyber threats continue to grow, presenting a formidable challenge to businesses worldwide. The consequences of a data breach can be catastrophic, meaning cybersecurity is at the top of the priority list. As such, it’s imperative for organizations to find efficient and effective solutions to protect their networks, safeguard sensitive data, and ensure business continuity. Cybersecurity Challenges in Modern Networks With your watch, refrigerator, and car all connected online, malicious actors…
Why has network automation failed to live up to expectations? After more than two decades of effort, millions of man-hours, and hundreds of tools created, network automation has largely not achieved its intended objective of eliminating manual operations. Multiple industry association surveys (e.g., Enterprise Management Association, Gartner) show that most enterprises have automated less than half of their data center tasks. Why is this so? When asked, most IT network operators would say that “automation” should help them do manual, repetitive tasks faster. But fast…
