by Julius Francis, Juniper Networks
The COVID-19 pandemic shifted our physical world into a virtual one nearly overnight, and every day we are reminded of the critical role the network plays in maintaining continuity in our lives. In today’s hyperconnected world, where a strong internet connection is your lifeline to the world outside, the importance of the network has never been clearer. As enterprises continue to double on efforts to manage a remote workforce, service providers are being tasked with the enormous burden of delivering real-time computing of peak traffic levels and also a positive experience for the end-user.
This traffic isn’t just occurring in random spikes, but sustained plateaus, meaning the onus is on service providers to ensure they’re investing in network architectures to ensure they’re able to pass this pressure test. And while it’s likely that traffic patterns will return to normal once we emerge from the current situation, the pandemic will spur long term changes in terms of how networks are built and managed moving forward.
Digital Transformation Must Also Apply to the Network
Legacy systems and processes proved to be a major impediment to business continuity when we first shifted to remote work. As it stands, so much of IT process and knowledge is simply kept in people’s minds and shared only among a handful of individuals within a company rather than being tracked in a formalized process. Unfortunately, that is no longer acceptable in this new world of remote work. There’s been a lot of chatter about how COVID has made digital transformation a business imperative, and that also applies to network management. And while networks aren’t top of mind when investing in digital transformation, delivering seamless connectivity cannot be an afterthought as it’s more important now than ever in our lifetimes.
The rapid disruption in business and IT continuity has forced service providers to audit their processes and overall approaches to network management, revealing the need for more autonomous operations and highly agile networks. Because networks were never designed or prepared for the rigors of fully digital operations, service providers should take this as an opportunity to overhaul and optimize each end of the network with automated operations and intelligent monitoring tools.
AI and Machine Learning Can’t Be an Afterthought
This is a watershed moment for companies to become more data-driven. While data-driven networking has been happening for quite some time, the current situation is accelerating this shift. And with this heightened emphasis on data, we can expect AI, automation, and machine learning technologies to take on an even greater role in service provider network management.
For example, since the shift to remote work, AI has proven to be an important tool for service providers to analyze data and proactively identify network issues before they reach the end-user. Service providers can also overhaul operations with automation to make networks ‘zero-touch’ and deliver an uninterrupted experience for end-users by identifying problems before they begin the disrupt connectivity.
Shifting to End-to-End Network Security
The pandemic has proven that bad actors will take advantage of any crisis for their own gain. That’s why it’s more important than ever for service providers to deploy automation technologies that work faster and more efficiently than humans to secure thousands of endpoints across the network. After all, for service provider networks, security must be ingrained everywhere – in the protocols, the systems, the elements, the provisioning, and in the business surrounding the network – to ensure each point of entry is secure.
To do this, service providers must take a holistic, end-to-end security approach, layering on encryption and automation, to ensure that networks are protected all the way through.
A Future Centered Around Innovation
Rather than hunkering down to uphold the status quo, service providers should be looking ahead and using this crisis to improve their network architectures and prepare for the next unpredictable problem. For many, preparing for the unknown means finally embracing the shift to Cloud, 5G, and AI-driven networks – real business value can be derived when service providers deploy all three of these technologies collectively.
While each provider’s transformation journey into the new era of cloud, 5G and AI is different, success with all three hinges on investments in network architecture, operational economics, and services. This approach will usher in the next generation of services in this highly uncertain time – delivering massive speeds, deploying autonomous operations to manage huge data sets and keeping networks secure end-to-end. Together, cloud, 5G, and AI will enable a quantum leap forward in scale and performance.
Julius Francis is Senior Director of Product Marketing at Juniper Networks.
