TALKING

Customer and workforce demands on the network are evolving faster than the pace of traditional businesses and the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated this change . The digital winners of tomorrow don ’ t think in terms of building solutions that merely solve today ’ s challenges . Their eyes are set on being ready for challenges that are yet to materialize . They build for change .

To thrive , companies need a different level of adaptability and creativity to handle competition , manage new threats and embrace new technologies . Yet the network is often overlooked . Like the forgotten but essential plumbing in a vast mansion which is being renovated for the future , the renovation will include modern new features and facilities to enhance the experience of living there for years to come .

However , unless the owners also upgrade the plumbing to create more capacity and resilience , most of these new features won ’ t function effectively .

Digital innovation drives business growth

Today ’ s successful businesses need to have a strong innovation culture running through the organization .

The phrase ‘ Digital Transformation ’ is not just an aspirational goal , it is critical to business success .

That ’ s because essential business processes and interactions with customers , partners and employees , increasingly depend on tailored innovative digital solutions . The path to achieving digitization and business growth begins with the cloud , helping organizations connect teams , people , data and processes , in new ways to embrace the possibilities enabled by modern technologies .

The cloud has changed more than the way IT is implemented and managed ; it is changing the very fabric of business .

To enable this , businesses need robust network access from the Edge to the core , using softwaredefined networking , security and communications

technologies to ensure reliable and secure access to core business applications from wherever employees or customers are located .

2020 / 2021 were turbulent years , resulting in a shift to remote and flexible working to accommodate challenges posed by the pandemic . Changing working environments shone a spotlight on enterprise-grade networks , and the importance of embedding intuitive , AI-driven network infrastructure into their operations .

Connecting the secure , cloudorientated enterprise

The impact of COVID-19 , along with a change in thinking over the last few years about how the Internet can perform as the new corporate backbone , is influencing how businesses deploy and manage their enterprise-grade networks , as well as the tools required to do so .

In the past , traditional Multi-Protocol Label Switching ( MPLS ) networks were a popular way to ensure reliable connections for real-time applications . MPLS was designed for organizations that had multiple remote branch offices , geographically dispersed across the country or across the world , where most of the traffic was on-network to enterprise data centers .

Security was managed from a traditional ‘ castle and moat ’ perspective , where assets were all protected inside the enterprise perimeter , but the way enterprise applications and ecosystems are being built now is making this approach increasingly

Jeff Gray , Vice-President , Americas , Xalient

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