How networks are changing to carry the digital era

Three trends that are shaping modern networking today and tomorrow.
Brett Orwin, Managing Executive: Technology (CISO), Nexio.
Brett Orwin, Managing Executive: Technology (CISO), Nexio.

Networks connect applications and data with users and devices. They keep evolving, deploying a blend of established technologies and new innovations to keep us connected and productive. Several of these changes greatly impact how networks operate today and will behave in the future.

What are examples of the trends shaping networking? Brett Orwin, Managing Executive: Technology (CISO), Nexio, points to edge computing, zero trust security, and network function virtualisation as three important areas to watch and understand.

Edge computing keeps expanding

Edge computing has been quietly asserting its influence; today, it's everywhere. Self-driving cars, smart security cameras, mobile network base stations and fitness wearables are all examples of this technology's growing utility.

Edge computing is an intelligent or semi-intelligent device (as opposed to a passive sensor) at the edge of a network, where it handles certain processes and calculations to reduce data and traffic volumes. There are edge computing use cases for every vertical, especially in healthcare, retail, manufacturing and logistics. The ubiquity of edge computing is leading to a new trend of smart edge devices that can make more decisions on their own.

"People are not really aware that they use edge computing every single day," says Orwin. "It's getting to the point where a lot of OEMs are building more AI and machine learning features for edge. It's evolving from just routine computing at the edge to making intelligent decisions closer to the source. Edge computing is going to become more powerful and versatile, influencing how we design and manage networks."

No more barriers between security and networking

The fundamentals of zero trust security are straightforward: technology estates no longer function like castles that only focus on perimeter security. Instead, they should also monitor internal activities for strange behaviours that might indicate a cyber attack or other malicious activities. Doing so is crucial because users can now access networks at multiple points of entry, including cloud services.

Zero trust has introduced two trends for networks. Network segmentation and continual observability have become crucial, supporting automated policies that trigger if they detect unusual network traffic or logins. This close alignment between network and security architecture means collaboration between security and networking teams is becoming standard practice.

"A key part of zero trust architecture is network access control and observing traffic. If a server suddenly starts to transfer data abnormally, are there any triggers? You need to continually monitor traffic to enable that level of oversight. Networks also need to be segmented according to security priorities. Segmentation is the basis of a zero-trust network. You can manage access to network segments and make decisions based on your classifications and security policies. To make all of this work, the network and security components are absolutely end-to-end," says Orwin.

Network function virtualisation goes mainstream

Hosting cloud services, large applications and other high-demand systems relies on larger and more complex networks. These networks need more nuanced management, which is why network function virtualisation (NFV) has become more popular.

NFV virtualises hardware network components, such as routers, firewalls and load balancers. These physical components become virtual machines, which makes them easier to observe, manage and change, enabling large networks to scale based on changing conditions. NFV has been around since the early 2010s. Though you won't find this technology yet in many networks, it's commonplace at large cloud hosts, internet service providers and colocation data centres.

The latest NFV trend is large enterprise adoption. As vendors mature and advance NFV with artificial intelligence and converged designs, these systems become more affordable and deployable for large business networks supporting private data centres and hybrid cloud architectures. NFV provides them unprecedented flexibility, segmentation and monitoring while lowering costs associated with buying network appliances.

"Network function virtualisation allows us to do much more with networks because you can virtualise components," Orwin concludes. "That impacts segmentation, observability, management – everything about a network – and it's made things like large cloud services possible. Now major vendors are taking it to the next level, which makes it more appealing and feasible to large enterprises, not just service providers. Eventually, this will change how all networks are built and managed."