The explosion of mobile, cloud and social technologies has changed the business landscape with distance no longer a barrier to business success.
So says Brent Lees, senior product marketing manager for EMEA at Riverbed Technology, adding that the adoption of location-independent computing has meant a business's applications, data centre and offices can be spread around the world, but the business still achieves the same reliability and performance that it has come to expect.
According to Lees, location-independent computing is the ability to turn distance and location into a competitive advantage by giving IT the flexibility to host applications and data in locations that best serve the needs of business while ensuring that applications perform as expected, data is always available when needed, and performance issues are detected and fixed before end-users notice.
It ensures that business objectives, not technical constraints, drive how applications and data are delivered for the best user experience, and therefore highest productivity and return of investment, says Lees.
Also, apps and data can be hosted in the most optimal locations to ensure the fastest performance, highest security and most rapid recovery. Furthermore, with visibility of the network, the apps and the end-user experience, IT can identify and fix problems before end-users notice.
Lees points out that organisations are under pressure to reduce costs and, as a result, many are turning to initiatives such as data centre consolidation, cloud computing and virtualisation to ensure capacity is aligned with demand.
Implementing any of these solutions significantly changes how an application is delivered. This means applications can no longer be treated as static because the underlying infrastructure that services the application might completely change over time, says Lees.
Lees says the corporate network has evolved to support access from literally anywhere; technology like WiFi has freed users from the constraints of physical cabling, and widespread accessibility has been made available by Internet service providers such as cable operators and mobile phone companies.
Therefore, IT departments need to implement a flexible monitoring solution that can be embedded as part of the infrastructure, monitors end-user experience directly and can efficiently store and retrieve the relevant data quickly.
Only businesses that invest in monitoring solutions capable of adapting to this new fluid environment will be able to fully embrace the benefits of location-independent computing, concludes Lees.
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