CARRIER ETHERNET BUSINESS BRIEFING 2014: How enterprise needs are influencing cloud development
Company Strategy

CARRIER ETHERNET BUSINESS BRIEFING 2014: How enterprise needs are influencing cloud development

Faced with an increasing demand for extra capacity, enterprises are crying out for network solutions that provide both flexibility and mobility.

They not only need to expand capacity, but simultaneously must add new applications and fold in emerging technologies in order to make their infrastructure more adaptable. To achieve this, many enterprises are slowly moving in-house systems over to cloud data centres, although security and reliability concerns continue to put a brake on this migration.

“For enterprises that are not ready to adopt a “big-bang” approach, service providers are challenged with maintaining seamless connectivity between the cloud and the existing in-house data centre through hybrid models,” says Adrian Hobbins, CTO and co-founder of cloud service provider Exponential-e.

What he terms “Cloud Carrier Ethernet” will, he believes, become a mandatory requirement for customers moving to this hybrid model.

“However the cloud opportunity triggers a constant challenge of keeping the network together and ensuring customer demand for increased flexibility is met,” he adds. “At present, many cloud operators have neither the inclination nor the capability to address such challenges. Currently, the transition to cloud data centres is not automated, as most cloud operators do not have enterprise-class network infrastructure to connect new cloud-based resources back to a corporate WAN.”

He believes the solution is a simplified, automated approach to networking which requires less human intervention, much like that delivered by software defined networking (SDN).

“Providers who are able to own and operate both the cloud and network infrastructure will be best-placed to take advantage of this growing opportunity,” he concludes.


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