Network Computing

 

Businesses today rely more and more on high-speed network to achieve profitability and sustainability. As enterprise networks are connected to more devices than ever, high-speed, high-volume network traffic is required, but network monitoring tools for service assurance, traffic/data analytics, application performance and bandwidth management are far below the required capacity. According to researched surveys, over 50% of the surveyed enterprise IT personnel have reported data loss or dropped packets during traffic. The real-time network performance management and diagnosis platforms are the key factors for optimal performance, and minimal downtimes.

Network connectivity and communications have drastically transformed how the maritime industry carries out its critical business operations. Tasks such as voyage planning, vessel performance analysis, maintenance/manning expense estimation and onboard physical security can now be conducted with reduced cost, greater efficiency and better-defined accuracy, resulting in stronger revenues, enhanced profitability and competitive advantages.

Today’s enterprises are highly driven by cloud computing, cloud storage and mobile services in order to stay competitive in the market. However, this attracts more and more advanced cyber attacks to get through the network protocols. According to official reports, around 80% of organizations have experienced data breaches, no matter the scale and size of the institutes. In other words, even small and medium sized organizations are also at risks. In fact, the issue is occurring more frequently as more and more companies and government offices are targeted for spear phishing, malware, ransomware and other types of hacks.

Software-defined wide area network refers to WAN connections built and provisioned using software-defined networking (SDN) technology instead of proprietary hardware. Such virtualized WAN connections are intended for establishing highly agile and manageable enterprise networks at the compute and application tiers, between corporate HQs and branch offices or between data centers spanning large geographic distances.

The trend of cloud computing presents an opportunity to replace physical CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) with virtualized, software-defined CPE in order to establish flexible branch-to-cloud connections. Over the past few years in the industry, many enterprises have implemented virtual branch network by focusing on virtualized network services. In other words, virtual machines are replacing physical equipment to assure branch network connectivity while saving hardware costs. Therefore, enterprises today are seeking a reliable yet compact gateway solution that help them optimize and monitor their cloud connectivity between enterprise centers and branches.

IT managers in charge of administering network services for most of today’s multi-location businesses are expected to fulfill rules and levels of authentication based on the types of network services demanded by the local offices or transnational branches. These conventional network infrastructures, more often than not, are intended for delivering services that require almost no flexibility or scalability, which in turn making deploying new services over such wide area and long distance networks a costly and time-consuming task.

Internet usage continues to rapidly expand and evolve, and with it network infrastructure is changing and evolving. The use of general-purpose processors to provide network functionality has changed the face of the networking market and dramatically reduced costs for enterprises and telecom service providers. For the most part, these general-purpose servers have kept pace with Internet application usage. Network traffic, however, has increased dramatically with new applications that have extensive data plane requirements. Traffic has multiplied to a point where specialized technology is needed to keep up.