CONNECTIVITY
By Manish Sablok, Head of Field
Marketing North West and East
Europe, ALE
enterprise.alcatel-lucent.com
The C level quest to transform companies into digital
businesses has been further enabled by consumption-based
IT services disrupting traditional procurement patterns. But
the core delivery mechanism of IT services – the networking
infrastructure – has lagged behind this evolution, until now.
The growth of smart devices and apps has encouraged
businesses to expect a pay-per-use approach to deliver
business processes, disrupting traditional procurement
patterns. But while the on-demand and consumption-based
approach is becoming the norm for businesses, the network
or IT infrastructure so central to business and IT operations
has not evolved on similar lines.
To OPEX and beyond
For the customer, eliminating large or prohibitive upfront
costs and shifting to operational cost based on usage, and
spread out over a solution’s lifecycle, has obvious financial
appeal. LAN and WLAN are central to delivering access
to business critical applications as well as voice and video
communications, yet the investment and operational
effort required to keep the network up to date can prove a
challenge to many.
Some companies or organisations might have virtually
no network activity at the weekend. Some might shut
up shop for long holiday periods such as schools and
universities, and others, such as hotels and retail operations,
are always operational but see peaks and troughs in
infrastructure demand. A model that turns the network into
a utility service provides the answer.
Spreading the cost over the lifecycle of the network
may be the perfect solution for some organisations, and
some vendors and systems providers have started to shift
their infrastructure offering to a lease-based model which
moves the cost directly from CAPEX to OPEX. But for some
businesses and organisations, particularly those whose
network usage is not fixed, this does not go far enough and
a more granular on demand model is more compelling.
Leaner IT
The Network on Demand (NoD) pay-per-use model allows
firms to avoid the hefty upfront capital outlay on new
networking infrastructure, but goes even further and offers
greater value as businesses only pay for what they actually
use – turning the network into a utility. NoD is the next step
in the evolution of lean IT where organisations no longer
19
The innovative delivery model for
business critical infrastructure that
will keep you ahead of the curve...
pay for unused and underused infrastructure, but actually
link their technology expenditure directly to business
operations, which could be a far more cost-effective
approach.
The latest model
Some businesses may benefit from a model with a fixed
fee spread out over the course of contract as they have a
consistent and heavy demand for network resources - but
what if demand is not evenly spread? A cloud-managed
NoD Service offering has the capability to ‘meter’ and track
the number of ports in use on an hourly basis - providing
the granularity and flexibility businesses demand.
This model makes sense when you think about it in
action; take an exhibition centre as an example. If an
exhibition centre runs a couple of significant events during
a week they need the infrastructure in place to support
operations on these days. But what about the days where
there is less demand, where there is a much smaller staff
and fewer exhibitors or visitors? That’s five days of the
week! While the CAPEX or even the traditional OPEX models
see them paying for a network infrastructure not being
used, the pay-per-use infrastructure model effectively
eliminates this overspend and the value of the Network on
Demand approach becomes clear.
Staying ahead of the curve
As well as improving the affordability of network
infrastructure, this new on demand delivery model enables
businesses to take advantage of new technologies, faster.
Technology lifecycles are shortening with new product
and application developments picking up pace. This has
introduced a new challenge for organisations who want to
quickly exploit new technologies to stay competitive and
secure. Whether a business is struggling to acquire the skills
needed to support and operate new technology, or wants
access to the latest innovations, a fully managed LAN and
WLAN on demand network is the answer.
With 80% of infrastructure predicted to be on a pay-asyou-go basis within the next four years*, the new Network
on Demand service now uniquely available, will enable
organisations to get ahead of the curve. n
*IDC: IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Enterprise Infrastructure
2016 Predictions
www.networkseuropemagazine.com