Cloud networking has enjoyed extensive adoption rates and has so far made a huge impact on the way organisations are run by offering access flexibility.
ITWeb, in partnership with Riverbed, is conducting an online cloud networking survey during April. The survey intends to get a view of the current cloud networking landscape in South Africa to gain valuable insight.
"Riverbed, together with ITWeb, are excited to conduct this survey and to release its results as it will give us a good idea of the cloud networking landscape, but also to get a good idea of the rate of adoption, type of adoption and the stages of adoption,' says Wimpie van Rensburg, Manager, Solutions Engineering, at Riverbed.
Van Rensburg adds that the survey also aims to understand these same variables from an SD-WAN perspective, not only cloud.
"We also want to see how Cloud and SD-WAN adoption trends and rates are related."
In relation to cloud networking, Van Rensburg says it is essential to know what your organisation currently has and how it's being used.
"A proper foundation minimises the potential risks. Without planning, the project will undoubtedly encounter unwelcome surprises causing delay and additional costs."
Van Rensburg goes on to say that there are many interdependencies within organisation applications, not just from a technical perspective, but also from a physical infrastructure and process perspective.
"Many times, organisations don't understand these different perspectives, which lead to significant problems when these are moved outside of the organisation. Without planning, leading to problems, an organisation may run into a situation where they don't realise the full potential of cloud-based services. As an example, I know of a major organisation that is currently moving some services back from a cloud provider due to this lack of understanding," Van Rensburg says.
Hybrid networking drives change
"Global connectivity is becoming the norm in favour of backhaul. Adoption of the Internet over MPLS is rapidly becoming one the most significant areas of IT security scrutiny. Quantities of data being transmitted are increasing at a rapid rate."
Van Rensburg says hybrid networking is a big driver of change.
"I would say that orchestration and automation is also starting to play a role," he adds.
In terms of South African organisations, Van Rensburg believes that the overall success rate of cloud services implementations vary significantly across organisations.
"Most organisations I have had contact with have had various challenges when they migrated to cloud-based services.
"We are seeing a definite increase, and we are seeing some large organisations running very advanced services within the cloud, like banks. And I have also seen some with aggressive strategies who are planning to move their whole data centre into the cloud," he advises.
Van Rensburg points out that IT trends are driving investment in cloud services. "I think IT trends are more of an enabler to be honest. The real driver is business. Business has a need, and new capabilities like cloud and hybrid network make things possible for business that would not have been possible some years ago. Or at least it would have been very difficult, slow and expensive to achieve years ago."
Cloud and hybrid networking reliant on performance management
Van Rensburg states there is a critical link between cloud adoption and hybrid networking (SD-WAN). "The two are definitely related. Both cloud and hybrid networking is fundamentally dependent on strong performance management. Without deep visibility, both these will create significant challenges for organisations, as it does already," he concludes.
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