Eight networking trends your business should know about

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The coronavirus outbreak broke out in 2020, and no one could have foreseen the tremendous changes it would bring to organizations and people in all industries. The 2020 outbreak redefined the way people live and work, and most companies have developed their businesses by conducting remote work and ensuring business continuity in an ever-changing and uncertain environment. Today, companies not only need to make long-term and stable investments in technology and solutions to cope with the challenges brought about by the epidemic, but also to transform the changes brought about into business advantages and competitive advantages.

Networking is a great place to start. In fact, 2020 has been a year of strong demand for robust, secure, and innovative network solutions, and this trend will continue for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, there are many exciting advances in WAN technology, including automation and artificial intelligence, as well as emerging transport technologies and transformations at the network edge that enterprises should pay attention to. Looking ahead, here are eight network trends that enterprises should be aware of now and in the coming years.

1. Enterprises need to find new ways to move toward SASE

If enterprises want to achieve cloud adoption and digital transformation while supporting remote work from anywhere, they must transform both their WAN and security architectures, not just one or the other. As the debate over whether to adopt a secure access service edge (SASE) has subsided, the strategic imperative for enterprises in 2021 is to find a new path from a traditional data center-centric perimeter security architecture to a cloud-centric secure access service edge (SASE) architecture. This will require an intelligent software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) edge that unifies embedded security capabilities at the edge through automated orchestration and guidance to provide leading cloud-delivered security services. Enterprises will value the advantages of neutrality and unrestrictedness as they simultaneously support their legacy security architectures, navigate to a secure access service edge (SASE) to improve user experience, and address security challenges associated with new Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives.

2. Enterprises respond to IoT security challenges

Digital transformation has driven a proliferation of IoT devices, but it has created new security challenges. A zero-trust framework limits the connectivity of IoT devices to only what is needed, which is critical to containing threats and preventing lateral movement after a breach. While endpoint agents can be used to provide zero-trust access to users and applications, endpoint agents cannot be installed on most network-connected devices, such as printers, cash registers, cameras, and sensors. The new WAN edge will have to enable granular segmentation based on device identity, implement different security policies for each class of IoT endpoint, and provide enough embedded security features to support use cases between east-west data flows.

3. New edge computing continues to evolve and combines the advantages of SD-WAN, SD Branch and SASE

The edge is a critical point in the transformation of WAN and security, and is at the core of the three architectural shifts of SD-WAN, SD Branch, and SASE. First, SD-WAN provides cloud-first connectivity and control based on business policy or intent. Second, SASE provides a better and more direct way to connect users to business applications. Finally, as IoT applications accelerate, SD-Branch will become increasingly important for simplifying branch offices. SD-Branch will enable enterprises to implement consistent role-based policies that combine identities, devices, and applications, extending control from wired and wireless edges to WAN edge devices and the entire wide area network. Combining the advantages of SD-WAN, SD-Branch, and SASE can significantly enhance security and improve operational efficiency.

4. Edge computing strategies are reassessed based on the new normal

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, businesses needed to adapt quickly and often responded by implementing the most convenient remote work. Typically, this involved a combination of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), remote virtual private network (VPN) access, and easy-to-deploy cloud-managed devices such as remote access points. It is now widely recognized that the pandemic has changed the way companies work and conduct business. In 2021, companies will review the lessons they have learned over the past year and evolve their remote work strategies with a long-term perspective on the workplace. This will include eliminating trade-offs between security and user experience and providing a more consistent experience when workers are working from home, traveling, or in the office.

5. Low Earth Orbit Satellite Communication System (LEO) joins the 5G competition and will become the preferred wireless wide area network technology

Wireless wide area network access technology has the advantages of being ubiquitous and rapidly deployed. However, compared with wired communication technologies, traditional 4G/Long Term Evolution (LTE) solutions are costly and have lower bandwidth. With the wider promotion and application of 5G, the improvement in performance and cost competitiveness may lead to 5G being used for primary connections.

To support remote work from home, enterprises will extend the SD-WAN structure to the home, combining 5G and consumer broadband services to provide the highest quality experience for latency-sensitive voice and video applications and significantly improve network and application availability and resilience. People have also witnessed early trials of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband services, and new market competition is expected to emerge between 5G and LEO later in 2021, with LEO expected to cover all regions of the world. This will be a boon for companies that need to connect in remote areas, adding LEO broadband to the list of SD-WAN connection options.

6. IoT will drive the need for dynamic segmentation

Network segmentation is critical to curbing security breaches. To date, most enterprises have segmented traffic using virtual LAN (VLAN) and virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) technologies.

This enables them to separate guest Wi-Fi traffic from business application traffic, cash register transactions, and IoT device traffic. With digital transformation driving a surge in IoT device deployments and the potential for lateral movement from one class of compromised devices to another, new requirements have emerged for granular segmentation by IoT device type. This will increase the number of segments required for a typical branch from single digits to 50 or more, multiplying the number of VLANs, subnets, and VRFs, thereby exponentially increasing complexity and management overhead.

In 2021, enterprises will see significant growth in the adoption of dynamic segmentation architectures that create virtual segments based on end-user roles, device types, and endpoint security posture, allowing for the creation of dozens or even hundreds of segments as needed without the need to assign VLANs or subnets. This trend will begin at the edge of the branch office and campus.

This granular segmentation will be extended to the WAN through advanced SD-WAN and SD-Branch implementations, realizing the true potential of fully orchestrated edge-to-edge dynamic segmentation.

7. Advances in automation and AI drive enterprises toward self-driving WANs

More and more enterprises are benefiting from advances in automation and the use of artificial intelligence at the WAN edge to further simplify application management. Advanced SD-WAN edge platforms are business-driven, reflecting a top-down approach that aligns network resources with changing business needs. Advances in areas such as threat analytics and automated diagnostics are making networks more secure and resilient to disruptions from an expanding threat landscape. Network engineers are becoming more confident in “making the network self-driving,” recognizing the benefits of being able to focus more on driving business development rather than on day-to-day management.

8. The software-defined enterprise will emerge

In the case of SD-WAN, automation and AI have created a better way to implement WANs, and the same software-defined principles are being applied to other areas, such as data centers and campus LANs. In 2021, these software-defined silos will begin to merge into a broader software-defined enterprise architecture. Business units have already seen the early steps of SD-Branch, which unifies SD-LAN, SD-WAN, and branch security under a single orchestration framework. With Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) metadata, dynamic security segmentation can be extended from the LAN to the WAN and into the data center or cloud platform.

With end-to-end automation, AI, and role-based policy controls driven consistently across remote sites, campuses, data centers, and cloud platforms, enterprises will benefit from driving substantial increases in business efficiency and agility.