SD-WAN, SASE, cybersecurity: priorities in 2022

After another unpredictable year, IT leaders and CIOs are already looking ahead to the next and considering how they can remain agile and forward-thinking. According to Gartner’s latest “Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2022” report, growth, innovation, cybersecurity and cost efficiency are the most important areas for IT leaders to focus on. These trends are being driven by CEOs who want to support business growth, leverage technology for digitization and create scalable IT foundations for cost efficiency.

We are helping many of our clients to move more and more applications and workloads to the cloud to take advantage of the flexibility and agility this brings, while adopting new technologies that enable hybrid working and greater process efficiency. Gartner explains in its latest report that digital investments will be one of the key technology drivers in 2022, as organizations need to do more and further scale the digital environments they have developed during the pandemic and now integrate with many other applications across the enterprise.

Below we have compiled the three most important trends that we believe should be a priority for IT managers in 2022:

Distributed companies – challenges for the network (MPLS, SD-WAN,) and IT

The increase in hybrid and home working is creating distributed company structures. The workforce is geographically dispersed and the company network is under greater strain. This may affect the application experience for your employees and customers. This is a challenge which, as a driver of innovation, can also be an advantage for the company. Provided it is taken as an opportunity to redesign existing MPLS networks and make them future-proof and more user-centric via SD-WAN.

Gartner says:
“By 2023, 75% of companies that take advantage of distributed enterprise structures will be able to increase their revenue growth 25% faster than their competitors.”

With a distributed workforce, the focus is on facilitating collaboration and enabling high-quality remote access to the VPN. Existing MPLS or SD-WAN network technology can be a bottleneck or an enabler for a successful distributed working strategy. Our toolkit helps you to create a solid foundation for hybrid working Hybrid working.

Security, SASE, Service Edge Security and more

A distributed workforce across multiple locations brings security concerns at the service edge (SASE, endpoint security etc…) as security boundaries shift dynamically. You need to ensure that your employees, regardless of their location, application or access device and method, can do their jobs in a technologically sound and secure way in a controlled zero-trust environment.
Gartner refers to a “Cybersecurity Mesh Architecture” (CSMA), an approach to extending security controls beyond traditional corporate boundaries. Integrated tools with common interfaces and APIs are incorporated into the security process as required.

Gartner says:
“Organizations that adopt a cybersecurity mesh architecture by 2024 to integrate security tools and operate as a collaborative ecosystem will reduce the financial impact of individual security incidents by an average of 90%.”

This is how you build a solid hybrid working basis:

Cloud-native platforms and cybersecurity mesh architecture

Cloud-native is an approach to software development and application creation that takes advantage of a cloud computing delivery model. The use of cloud-native applications and platforms means that companies can realize greater agility, scalability and reliability as well as lower costs compared to the previous approach.

Gartner predicts:
“That cloud-native platforms will serve as the foundation for more than 95% of new digital initiatives by 2025, up from less than 40% in 2021.” In this rapidly changing world, moving to the cloud is more business-critical than ever, but without a robust cloud connectivity strategy, your business also faces many risks and hurdles along the way. Whether you’re thinking about your distributed workforce, your security arrangements or your cloud applications, having a good partner to help you along the way can be worth its weight in gold. After all, modern companies need a modern network and high-performance connectivity and integrated telecommunications solutions for modern collaboration and satisfied users and customers more than ever before.

Get in touch with us so that we can support you on your transformation journey.