Your network. The key to a successful cloud strategy
Trusted Advisor for IT & Telecommunications Sourcing
The network as the key to a successful cloud strategy
Why your cloud is only as strong as the connectivity behind it
The network decides performance, security and user experience
The cloud increases productivity, efficiency and collaboration, but without the right network its potential remains untapped. Many companies invest in cloud solutions but forget to adapt their network infrastructure accordingly. This is crucial for performance, security and user experience.
In a nutshell:
- Appropriate network design: Reliability, scalability and flexibility must match the cloud architecture.
- Secure access: Protection of data traffic inside and outside the network through modern encryption.
- Service quality: High SLAs and reliable connection from any location and device type.
- Flexible connection: Whether public, private or hybrid cloud, the network must support every environment.
- Technology diversity: IP-VPN, Ethernet and Wavelength offer different advantages in terms of performance, security and bandwidth.
The solution: A dedicated private network meets the requirements for resilience, scalability and security that the public Internet cannot guarantee. Depending on the cloud model, the route runs via IP VPN, Ethernet or wavelength.
What this article covers: Which requirements a cloud-ready network has to meet, how public, private and hybrid cloud affect the connection, and when IP VPN, Ethernet or wavelength is the right choice.
The question: How much cloud potential remains untapped in your company because the network is not keeping up?
Table of contents
Why the network decides whether the cloud pays off
The cloud is an enabler to make your business, processes and employees more productive, collaborative and efficient. Many companies therefore have a clear digitalization strategy. Their own network is often neglected in this. This is a mistake. The network is the key to the cloud. Only with a suitable network can the full potential of the cloud be securely exploited.
You need a network that matches your cloud
Operating business-critical applications via the cloud requires a network that:
- is fail-safe and resilient to outages
- is flexible in its ability to add or change endpoints
- is scalable in response to changing bandwidth requirements
- provides security to your users inside and outside the network
- ensures strong Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and reliable access from multiple locations & device types
Which type of connectivity is best?
Companies have three main options when it comes to the cloud:
1. Public cloud
With the public cloud, the infrastructure is shared with other companies.
2. Private cloud
With the private cloud, companies use their own dedicated infrastructure.
3. Hybrid cloud
With the hybrid cloud, companies primarily rely on a private infrastructure, but can outsource additional capacity to public data centers if required.
IP VPN, Ethernet or wavelength: the options compared
While the public Internet can provide basic connectivity, it cannot always guarantee the resilience, scalability or security required for critical business applications. A dedicated private network can fulfill these requirements while providing flexibility in terms of connectivity options.
A single wide area network (WAN) that can connect multiple branches and offices, whether they are a few locations or a few hundred, directly to the cloud at speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s. This is achieved by using the data center where the cloud applications are hosted as a node in the private network. (IP VPNs can also be extended to the public cloud to provide secure, direct access to cloud applications).
Ethernet
With its scalable and flexible point-to-point connectivity and speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s, Ethernet is ideal for companies considering a hybrid cloud connected to a public data center. For example, you might choose to run a limited number of workloads in the public cloud initially. As usage increases, Ethernet allows you to quickly increase bandwidth to meet demand.
Wavelength
Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) is an all-optical technology that is essential for companies that work with large data sets or rely on bandwidth-intensive applications such as data replication. Wavelength offers a bandwidth of up to 100 Gbit/s with extremely low latency.
How SAVECALL supports your cloud connectivity
SAVECALL advises independently of carriers and compares offers from a network of more than 80 partners. We first clarify cloud model, sites, bandwidth requirements and security needs and derive the right connection from that. When many sites need to grow together, SD-WAN is often the more economical route than a pure point-to-point solution. We then collect the offers, negotiate the terms and support provisioning and operation. You keep one point of contact across all carriers.
Make the network part of your cloud project
There is a lot to consider when choosing a network for your cloud, from the cloud model to your connectivity and bandwidth requirements and the operation of your network. From the initial planning phase of your cloud project, your network must also be included.
Written by
Frank Frommknecht
Key Account Consultant, SAVECALL
Has supported companies for more than 20 years in selecting and optimising their connectivity solutions. His focus: making complex telecommunications understandable from the customer perspective and finding the right solution strategically.
Sources
- MEF, Carrier Ethernet Services, technical specifications for Ethernet services
- ITU-T, Recommendation G.694.1 on dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM)
- Bitkom, Cloud Monitor, annual survey on cloud adoption in Germany
- SAVECALL, WAN overview and security
Network and cloud: questions and answers
Frequently asked questions about connecting your network to the cloud
The cloud can only deliver its potential if the connection to it meets the requirements of the applications. Business-critical applications need resilience, predictable latency and reliable bandwidth. If the network is forgotten in the digitalization strategy, performance problems arise that can no longer be solved at application level. That is why network planning belongs in every cloud project from the start and not at the end.
The public Internet provides basic connectivity but cannot always guarantee the resilience, scalability or security required for critical business applications. For non-critical applications it is often sufficient. As soon as revenue, production or customer contact depend on it, a dedicated private network is the more robust choice because it comes with firm service level agreements and predictable performance.
Three options dominate. IP VPN connects many sites in one WAN directly to the cloud at speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s. Ethernet offers scalable point-to-point connectivity up to 10 Gbit/s and suits hybrid scenarios with a public data centre. Wavelength based on DWDM delivers up to 100 Gbit/s at very low latency and is intended for data-intensive applications such as data replication.
With the public cloud, infrastructure is shared with other companies and access usually runs over the Internet or a dedicated cloud connection. With the private cloud, companies use their own dedicated infrastructure, so connecting the own data centre is the focus. The hybrid cloud combines both and places the highest demands, because the network has to serve both worlds securely and at the same time.
Wavelength is worth it when very large volumes of data move between a few points and latency is critical. Typical cases are data replication between data centres, backup links and storage mirroring. For connecting many sites, IP VPN is more economical, and for flexible point-to-point links with growing bandwidth demand, Ethernet is usually the right middle ground.
SAVECALL advises independently of carriers and compares offers from a network of more than 80 partners. We first clarify cloud model, sites, bandwidth requirements and security needs and derive the right connection from that, from IP VPN through Ethernet to wavelength. We then collect the offers, negotiate the terms and support provisioning and operation. You keep one point of contact across all carriers.
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