A decade ago, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen wrote a WSJ opinion article that provocatively (at that time) stated that “Software is eating the world”. Today it’s safe to say that almost all enterprises are developing new applications for business processes by integrating in-house development, commercial offerings, and incorporating more SaaS and open-source components. Organizations are migrating applications and services to cloud native design patterns—often based on a combination of open-source and SaaS components—and deploying them on multiple public clouds and cloud-like on-prem or dedicated infrastructure….
The Network: Here, There, and Everywhere A few years ago, if you asked someone on a networking team, “Where is the network?,” they would probably show you a wiring closet or a data center. They might also describe where the wireless access points are located and how remote offices are connected through MPLS or leased lines. This would be an accurate description of the traditional campus, branch, and data center networks that have been the norm for many years. These networks were comprised of specialized…
Enterprises have embarked upon the digital transformation journey for the last decade. We have learned that it’s not just a technological shift, but an organizational change in people, process and technology. The transformation itself is a multi-faceted change of the organization that renders the enterprise nimble, agile and efficient enabling the business to flourish. Figure 1 : Stages Of IT Orchestration Most CIOs are experiencing Digital Transformation Fatigue. Issues with the long-drawn process with consultants creating a slower than expected digital transformation or internal IT…
As more and more companies move to the cloud, the question becomes one of network infrastructure. How do organizations design, deploy and support a cloud-based network? Is it possible to achieve the end-to-end visibility that organizations require? Does the level of complexity make it impossible to securely manage resources? Listen to Matt Hoag, Senior Enterprise Architect for Koch Industries, as he talks about the company’s journey to a cloud network in this session from ONUG Fall 2020. Koch Koch is based in Wichita, Kansas, and…
Across industries, enterprise network architects are adding new agility and flexibility to their network infrastructure stacks through public cloud technologies like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings. While the benefits of network elasticity, cost savings, and capex avoidance are relatively well understood, NetOps professionals often struggle with managing and automating the operations and troubleshooting of cloud environments synchronously with the physical environments under their watch. Multi-cloud environments only add to this struggle. Perhaps this sounds surprising as cloud…
The widespread impact of the SolarWinds (Sunburst and Supernova) security hacks sent network teams scrambling to react, assess the impact and mitigate any potential damage. Organizations needed to conduct a forensic assessment phase to determine if they were affected then follow the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) emergency directive 21-01 to take steps to address a possible breach. CISA has released an alert (CISA Alert AA20-352A) that recommends mitigation steps to take for SolarWinds Orion and to address potential vulnerabilities left in the network…
In 2019, Gartner defined a new category, that it said will transform network security as we know it – the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). What is SASE? It is a new architecture to deliver common networking and security capabilities to every user, accessing any application, at any location, in a consistent way. This value proposition is applicable to enterprise of all sizes, yet “the devil is in the details”. SASE has two conflicting attributes: the features are well known; the architecture is brand new….
Technology companies have a diversity and inclusion problem. Many have promised to improve, but the reality is few have made significant headway. Google reported improvement in 2020 but still fell short of what would be considered a diverse workforce. 5.5% of employees were Black 6.6% of employees identified as Latinx 32.5% of employees were women Google is not alone. Other tech companies show similar numbers. Only Apply and Amazon show more diversity; however, much of that is because of their retail and warehousing businesses. During…
A remote-first workforce presents challenges for IT. It’s one thing to download a file using the office network. It’s an entirely different experience when trying to download that same file from halfway around the world. Ian Trueman, Director of IT Operations at ERM, faced exactly that situation as more end-users began working from home. This ONUG Fall 2020 session presents how ERM addressed the increased demand on its distributed network. Alison Hubbard, VP of Product Marketing for Riverbed, joined Ian Trueman to discuss how Riverbed…
As more organizations expand their digital footprint, they will grow to depend on network reliability, security, and adaptability. Traffic patterns will change as remote workers continue to increase. Network reliability will become increasingly important as a disruption in service means a disturbance throughout the enterprise. Manual configuration is error-prone, which is why many companies are moving to automation tools; however, only five years ago, “95% of network changes were done manually.” With network automation, businesses can overcome inefficiencies and improve their effectiveness to ensure their…
