How to make your network infrastructure cloud-ready

Trusted Advisor for IT & Telecommunications Sourcing

Cloud-ready networks with SD-WAN and SASE

Cloud-enabled network design as the key to a successful cloud strategy

Many companies have moved their applications and processes to the cloud in recent years, but the network infrastructure often remains the bottleneck. Old structures are not designed to meet the requirements of modern cloud or multi-cloud environments and therefore hinder scaling, performance and security.

Typical challenges for IT teams:

Insufficient bandwidth or high latency affect cloud applications
Lack of transparency across all network traffic
Security gaps due to distributed systems and data movements
Complex management across different platforms
Limited flexibility with increasing requirements

The question: How can a network be designed that optimally supports cloud strategies without jeopardizing stability, security or performance?

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The cloud fits into the IT infrastructure by offering the following:

On-demand resources: Cloud services and applications offer scalable resources that can be adapted as required. This eliminates the need for excessive provisioning and reduces costs. These range from tools for collaboration, design, CMS, CRM, communication and much more. You can truly build a customized portfolio of cloud services and applications that meet the specific needs of your business and extend your IT infrastructure.
Better collaboration: Cloud platforms enable seamless collaboration between teams, regardless of their physical location. This promotes innovation and productivity and creates a truly global organization. Instead of setting up a complex IT infrastructure at each location, cloud computing can be used as a plug-in, giving every employee at every location access to the tools they need
Disaster recovery and backup: Cloud solutions offer robust disaster recovery and backup options. This ensures business continuity in the event of data loss or system failures.
Security: Cloud applications increase the attack surface to which your company is exposed. It is therefore important that when using the cloud, you also increase your security measures so that they also cover your cloud environment. The cloud-based security solutions from Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) are an excellent way to achieve this.

As you can see, the cloud can have a far-reaching impact on your network. If you decide to adopt a cloud strategy, you will need to invest in your network to take full advantage of the cloud This is where the challenge lies for many companies.

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It’s no secret that organizations around the world are turning to the cloud to improve operations, increase scalability and drive innovation. While the ambition to migrate workflows to cloud or multi-cloud environments is there, implementation requires further strategic planning. Currently, many corporate network infrastructures are not prepared for the demands of increased cloud usage.

Understanding how to design a cloud-ready network can support your cloud strategy and ensure your investment pays off.

How does cloud computing fit into the IT infrastructure?

Cloud computing has changed the way companies manage their IT infrastructure. Instead of using traditional on-site data centers, cloud environments are used for more flexibility, scalability and cost optimization.

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Can your network withstand the demands of the multi-cloud?

Key considerations when assessing whether your network can keep up with the demands of multi-cloud adoption include:

Visibility and control: Comprehensive visibility and control of network traffic is essential for managing a multi-cloud environment. Ideally, you need a single tool that allows you to see the status of your entire network. Including overlay and underlay, right down to site level. This allows you to identify issues, optimize performance and ensure compliance – all from one place, not multiple platforms. You also need a simplified view that can be used by different stakeholders across the organization.

Bandwidth and latency: Multi-cloud environments require high bandwidth and low latency to ensure smooth data transfer and application performance. Insufficient bandwidth or high latency can lead to performance bottlenecks. This can affect the performance of your applications, leading to user frustration and affecting the cloud strategy itself. However, when you add cloud services, bandwidth requirements can increase by 30% every year.

Reliability and redundancy: Network reliability and redundancy are critical to a consistent user experience in a multi-cloud setup. Network outages can lead to significant downtime. They can disrupt business operations as employees are unable to access the applications they need to complete tasks, collaborate or communicate.

Security: Multi-cloud environments require robust security measures to protect data when it is moved back and forth between the various on-premise and cloud environments. Both during transfer and at rest. This includes encryption, firewalls and secure access controls.

To summarize:

If your current network has problems with any of these aspects, it is not cloud-ready. And that could ultimately affect the cloud strategy you are pursuing.

Security

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Security is the foundation of any network strategy.
How to design a cloud-ready network:

In many companies, cloud adoption was seen as an opportunity to improve the network infrastructure. Often with a patchwork approach to integration. Rather than simply adding cloud capabilities to an existing infrastructure, it’s important to rethink and redesign your network. This way you can take full advantage of the cloud.

SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network) has emerged as one of the most important connectivity solutions to include in your cloud connectivity strategy. It provides the flexibility, security and performance required for cloud-first strategies.

Below you will find our framework for developing a cloud-enabled network with SD-WAN at its core:

Customer example of a multi-cloud solution:

1

Assess current network capacity: Start by assessing your current network infrastructure to identify gaps or limitations in areas such as bandwidth, latency, security and reliability. You can then address these issues when building your SD-WAN architecture.

2

Upgrade network hardware: While hardware upgrades such as routers, switches and firewalls are essential, SD-WAN complements these upgrades by enabling seamless integration with cloud services. SD-WAN enables efficient routing of traffic across multiple sites. This optimizes performance and ensures low-latency connections that are critical to a cloud-first strategy.

3

Implement SASE as a security foundation: SASE is a cloud-based solution that integrates network security and WAN services. It offers functions such as data loss prevention, secure web gateway, CASB, FWaaS and uniform policy management. It ensures secure, scalable and centralized access for modern enterprises across different cloud environments.

4

Using SD-WAN for security and strategy: Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) secures your data at the edge as it is transferred between different locations and cloud services. It uses encryption, firewalls, Zero Trust protocols and more. It also adds an intelligent automation layer, as SD-WAN can dynamically adapt to changing network conditions and prioritize critical applications.

5

Using multi-cloud: No organization will house all of its workloads in a single cloud platform or with a single cloud provider. When managing a multi-cloud environment, ensuring optimal performance for critical applications is critical. SD-WAN’s application prioritization capabilities allow you to dynamically allocate network resources. This ensures that your most important applications get the bandwidth and low latency they need. This approach improves the agility, flexibility and resilience of your cloud platforms. This allows you to manage workloads seamlessly across different providers while maintaining a high-quality user experience.

6

Improve application performance: Because SD-WAN prioritizes your cloud traffic to the closest PoP, an Enhanced Internet solution can accelerate that traffic over the best performing route to where the cloud application is hosted. This means lower end-to-end latency and higher user performance. Our Enhanced Internet IP nodes are precisely matched to the data centers of the major cloud providers. This maximizes coverage and allows us to cater to the use cases and locations your business needs.

7

Improve network visibility and monitoring: Use network monitoring tools to monitor network performance in real time and identify potential issues before they impact operations. This helps to maintain optimal performance and make informed decisions.

Savecall can help you design and implement a cloud-ready network that supports your digital transformation. Whether you’re upgrading your infrastructure, implementing SD-WAN solutions or improving your network security, our team of experts is ready to guide you through every step of the process.

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