Network Nirvana

Through the process of simplification, networks achieve new levels of resiliency, responsiveness, and lower total cost of ownership.

The concept of network simplicity sounds paradoxical. Networks are by definition highly complex, globally dispersed, assembled through any number of technologies, and accessed through any number of media. And these networks deliver a wide array of sophisticated services. It’s safe to say that no enterprise network will ever be simple, but new technologies, products, and processes enable it to be simplified, and the transformation can make it a much more lucrative business investment.

As network technologies have matured over the past decade, the corporate network has undergone major evolutionary phases, drastically changing the nature of its business role. As new advances such as firewalls and Web-caching technologies arrived on the market, they were sold as separate boxes, network addons. The network itself became more complex as new boxes from a variety of vendors were connected. This “network by committee approach,” while able to satisfy certain new discreet demands, drives operating costs higher, renders networks less reliable, and lengthens the reaction time to each new onrushing requirement.