The Cloud Meets (and Solves) Network Challenges

As options in the cloud expand possibilities for enterprise IT infrastructure, companies are gaining agility and performance as well as reducing their overall costs. Many companies are able to spread their software, storage, and network needs across a variety of on-site, cloud, and remote sites.

A challenge that remains for enterprises as they seek the best cloud solutions is distance. No matter what combination of remote, cloud, and on-site network options you choose, there is a time lapse of data exchanges that can’t be completely eliminated. With speed being a top consideration for performance, every enterprise must consider which combination of network solutions will work best.

Thankfully, the cloud is turning out to provide good potential for solving this challenge. Here are a few of the new developments for answering network questions that plague enterprises like yours:

Pushing analytics out: While many companies want to push management and analytics to the cloud and keep application backends and application programming interfaces (APIs) in-house, doing so may result in latency. An alternative is to employ a lightweight federated cloud gateway as a way to keep API runtimes on-site and push analytics out to the cloud with a managed services provider.

Fabric technologies: Some companies use a fabric technology setup to enable clients to connect directly from their data centers to one of a number of cloud facilities. This allows terabits of information to flow freely between parties given access to a connection on the fabric. This setup also enables multiple network configurations to be deployed using a custom API, and a web-based portal provides a high level of visibility and control over data traffic.

Hub-and-spoke expires: With companies using a hybrid approach to network support, the prevalence of hub-and-spoke network infrastructure is likely to decrease and eventually disappear. This is because most companies are unlikely to choose only one provider for cloud services, so they’ll require an any-to-any network configuration. This technology already exists in CloudNexus, which supports rapid migration and workload mobility.

The introduction of the cloud into enterprise infrastructure and network support also presents some difficulties in managing the speed and distance of network transmissions. It seems, though, that the cloud will not only introduce challenges, but also provide the necessary solutions.

To learn more about options for outsourcing your network, talk with our consultants at AMD Technology. We partner with you to not only clear the fog that can often come with cloud decisions, but also to help you choose the solutions that are the best fit for your company.