DATA CENTRES |
|||
The constant in a sea of change |
|||
|
Even as the hype around cloud and virtualisation rages and the application stack undergoes a rearchitecting as containers and microservices gain traction , the network remains the steady constant of IT . The tagline that Sun Microsystems used in the 1990s has never been more true : ‘ The Network Is the Computer .’ Chances are , if a device is not communicating over the network , it is irrelevant . Today , the network is the one element tying together every aspect of the digital business .
According to Dan Conde , networking analyst for ESG , ‘ Even if data centres disappear and get sucked into the cloud , you still have those darn users , and those users have devices and those devices need to connect to the network .’
The fact that the network remains foundational amidst the upheaval and abstraction is telling : it ’ s not going anywhere . Unfortunately , right now it ’ s rarely being used to its fullest potential .
|
|||
The network blindspot |
|||
|
When it comes to the network , IT organisations have a blindspot . Far from using it to its full potential as a source of critical IT and business insight , many IT organisations treat the network as the first place to point the finger when something goes wrong .
The reasons for this are many . For one , historical lack of visibility into the network has made it an easy target when things go wrong . It ’ s hard to prove innocence without visibility .
|
‘ Fast forward 35 years , and the speed and sophistication of networks is staggering …’ |
For another , when network outages do occur , the impacts can be severe and far reaching , as well as well publicised . This keeps the network-as-a-problem narrative top-of-mind within the IT organisation .
Unfortunately , the blame-thenetwork first game is becoming increasingly counterproductive . As digital business grows , the cost of application outages and degradation continues to go up . According to estimates from Gartner , the average cost of an application outage now stands at $ 5,600 per minute of downtime .
Rethinking the network
The reason behind the exploding cost of application outages is no mystery . Individuals and businesses alike increasingly rely on digital interactions to support every facet of daily life . All of those interactions that are generating zettabytes worth of traffic now make up our digital
|
existence including activities both mundane and critical .
Instead of the first place IT points the finger when something goes wrong , the network should become the first place they go for the insight they need to fix a problem and restore end user experience . The network is the only source of data about every digital interaction and their impact on our digital existence .
What if you could mine the communications between devices for real time insights ? Instead of each team relying on niche tools to provide insight into their respective domain , all teams could turn to the single data source that touches all aspects of the digital experience to diagnose and analyse the problem .
It ’ s time to rethink the network and to recognise it for what it is – the single largest source of real time information about every interaction , from communications between servers to a text message sent , an order filled , or a patient receiving care .
|
34 | March 2017 |