Simplifying for Innovation: 2013’s Five Most Common Networking Objectives of CIOs
The 2013 network priorities for typical midsized (500-5000 seat) organisations are an exercise in ‘pragmatic intelligence’ according to Exinda, as CIOs and senior network managers wrestle to simplfy, streamline and consolidate in order to embrace the next phase of network innovation.
Exinda is a leading global supplier of WAN Optimization and Network Control solutions, with more than 3,000 midsized enterprise customers spanning industries such as manufacturing, retail, government and education. The following are the five most common networking objectives within their network plans:
1. Simplify network toolset and spend by identifying waste
Simplifying the use of networking tools – and the tools themselves – is the most frequently cited objective for 2013. Many customers are explaining about the need to remove wasted systems and redundant monitoring and intelligence sources across the IT management estate.
2. Reduce integration overhead through network service consolidation
The burden of managing so many complex and isolated systems is becoming untenable, say CIOs and network managers. With IT budgets barely increasing this year, focus is shifting from bringing in new independent tools toward introducing converged or integrated solution suites.
3. Empower managers with greater intelligence through network dashboards
The CIO and network manager of the typical midmarket company is deeply concerned about how to create simple, business-centric network dashboards that help to resolve bottlenecks faster and monitor and diagnose user issues more easily. A recurring sentiment is the need for richer user experience scoring, and a more direct connection among performance data, best practice benchmarking and problem resolution.
4. Measure and control the growing ‘social enterprise’, keeping the user as the focal point
Midsized organisations are focused on striking the right balance between unleashing the power of social media/collaboration, and assuring network SLAs and compliance. Their challenge is to maintain visibility of the user across all his/her devices and locations and to control the way in which network resources are used for social media and collaboration. This means tracking why the user is accessing applications and devices, prioritising that activity from a business perspective, and then allocating resources intelligently to meet the need.
5. Set five-year strategy for network virtualisation/SDN
The last objective is to take the first steps toward adoption of software-defined networking (SDN). In previous discussions, Exinda heard repeatedly about the need to avoid repeating the mistakes made with server virtualisation as companies embark on network virtualisation over the next three to five years.
A full examination of the 2013 network priorities, developed in consultation with the Exinda community, is available in the Exinda white paper: “5 Easy Tips from Top CIO Network Plans for 2013”
“The same objectives come up time and time again in discussions with our community; it’s clear that few if any are intent upon a ‘business as usual’ approach to managing their networks,” said Brendan Reid, VP Product Marketing at Exinda. “Rationalising infrastructure, streamlining processes and consolidating spending are the target outcomes, and these are very much in line with the expectations of analyst firms such as Gartner.”
About Exinda®
Exinda is a leading global supplier of WAN optimization and Network Control solutions. Exinda enables organisations to assure a predictable user experience for strategic business applications through policy-based WAN optimization and Network Control that intelligently allocate network bandwidth and optimize traffic based on the priorities of the business. The company has helped more than 2,500 organisations in over 80 countries worldwide assure application performance, improve the end-user experience, contain recreational applications and reduce network operating costs for the IT executive. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com/.