What are the factors that are forcing the direction of cloud and network technology development?
First, there is an explosive growth in the mobile / computing device market. Enterprises are being forced to adopt BYOD (Bring your own device) policies. The outcome—variety in the nature and types of devices that are used to connect to the enterprise network, a demand for an intelligent network management system that will ensure reliability, security, and availability 24 x 7 x 365! In other words, there is an urgent and overwhelming need to create network “connections” that are thought-through constructs and not a set of pipes put together anyhow. The protocols must address core issues, recognising the complex and dynamic nature of the relationships between the network and the device connecting to it. Network management must keep pace with the current developments and synchronise IP address management concepts to provide the necessary network intelligence and control.
Second, the infrastructure is a moving target. Virtualisation has resulted in continuous movement of virtual environments between data centres and networks. As a result, there is an overwhelming need to keep track of when, where, and how virtual servers and devices are being stored at any given point in time, and how they can be accessed. Therefore, implementation of an automated network infrastructure is a business imperative. Businesses can no longer afford to be bogged down with IP address conflicts and network configuration errors or lack of visibility into address usage. IP address management will have to be integrated with self service portals to prevent bottlenecks in provisioning for virtual and physical devices in the cloud.
It is no secret that connectivity is the key to business competitiveness in the modern world. The network must provide the actionable intelligence that businesses need to survive and grow in the increasingly global world that is battered by big data and unquenchable hunger for information. Businesses that are slow to adapt are doomed to fade away and die. Commonsense dictates that enterprise IT system developers focus their energies on the development of solutions that facilitate smarter ways of connecting system resources, mobile devices, applications, virtual environments and clouds together, and infuse it all with a unified sense of purpose. The felt need is to build an integrated IT system, a mobile security system, resolve address management issues, and encourage automation / self service while preserving scalability, reliability, security, and at the same time reducing costs, enhancing delivery, and optimising user experience.
