Role of Network Infrastructure in the Digital World

Network infrastructure is essential to transform an organization into collaborative, knowledgeable, and importantly customer-centric. The need to eliminate waste, latency, balance resources and demand, accelerate business processes is the need of the hour. Towards this end, ACL Digital’s infrastructure services help NEMs (Network Equipment Manufactures) and OEM’s (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to transform the legacy infrastructure into programmable and converged IP based services.

As companies board on digital transformation plans, the prominence of the network, particularly the edge, where employees, customers, IoT devices, and applications connect to the enterprise has increased manifold. Networks must evolve as the legacy static and non-differentiated network edge of the earlier years are no longer relevant.

Without a steady infrastructure in place, an organization may face an uphill task as it impacts customers and employees. It is vital to understand the importance of network infrastructure and why it is essential for your business. In an increasingly demanding and complex network environment, the experts at ACL Digital have the necessary skills and knowledge to deliver secure and reliable connectivity for your business. We also have an experienced team to build a network infrastructure that can sense the requirement for change in the day-to-day operations and business processes.

Let Us Understand Network Infrastructure

Network infrastructure is typically identified with IT environments where multiple devices are connected through wireless and wired methods. Not to forget the software and hardware components that accelerate or enable communication, network connectivity, operations, and management of the network. Having the right network infrastructure management techniques allows for better performance, improved availability, and rapid solutions for various problems. Below are the main components of network infrastructure:

Software: Firewalls, operating systems, network security operations, network management and much more
Hardware: Wireless routers, LAN cards, switches, routers, cables, and more
Services: Wireless protocols, satellite, IP addressing, DSL, and more

Why is Network Infrastructure so Important?

Technologies like SDN (software-defined networking), cloud computing, and SD-WAN provide essential opportunities for business organizations to enhance their agility and transform their business. As the tool for providing information and services across the organizations, the network is crucial to facilitate next-generation digital practices. The networks should evolve as companies embark on digital transformation plans. Also, if there are disruptions to any services related to the network located across public or private clouds, applications may not perform well.

Taking the time to find an adaptable, clean, and robust network is crucial to your company’s success. Having qualified personnel and reliable IT infrastructure will not fit the bill if you do not have a well-built network infrastructure. To ensure maximum productivity, you need to invest in the best possible networking solution. ACL Digital’s market-proven solution accelerators and framework help reduce time to market and enhance product feature set quickly and efficiently.

Top Challenges Surrounding Network Infrastructure

There are multiple challenges faced while running a network infrastructure model. Below are some of the top challenges:

1. Handling duplicate data: Eliminating duplicate data is crucial, especially when it comes to the efficacy of network security solutions. In some cases, the duplicate data can compromise 50-70 per cent of network traffic. It may also slow down the security solution and make it less effective in detecting prospective threats.
2. Consolidating or centralizing all traffic: There are several sites, subnets, and locations within an organization. With the absence of a centralized hub, monitoring, network visibility, and management can turn out to be difficult and impractical. These days many business organizations use network infrastructure solutions to centralize traffic and monitor and identify the data passing through their networks.
3. Growth: The network behaviour keeps changing and is unpredictable. There is a constant increase in the number of devices connected to the network, and with every additional device connection, there is an added potential point of failure.
4. Cost: Allocated budget hardly meets the need for network services, particularly when the network must support not just conventional IT applications but also, usual business services like VoIP, videoconferencing that needs different levels of network quality.
5. Configuration management: An increase in the size of networks will make managing network configuration even more difficult. As multiple devices can conflict with each other, it becomes tough and tricky to keep the rules in firewalls up to the minute. Wherein manual application of policies leads to errors and inconsistencies.
6. Poor network performance: Business organizations that work round the clock need 24x7 network availability. More traffic in all directions and without the right equipment at endpoints and midpoints will make it extremely difficult and demanding to provide the high-speed communications required by the applications today.
7. Sending the data to the right tool: Today, companies use different cybersecurity tools and providers. Accordingly, sending the appropriate data to the right tool becomes a critical aspect of infrastructure networking. Transferring data from multiple sources to the same tool might be ineffectual and expensive, especially if the tool is matched to one type of data and another tool to another type.
8. Security: The boundaries of today’s network are uncertain, and just preventing unauthorized external traffic from the internal network would not be sufficient to protect data. Many unwarranted threats sneak into the network when employees respond to phishing emails. Though encryption helps protect traffic, it will not help to examine and manage network activity. Today, multiple tools are used to improve network security, but to ensure they work together and provide a solution is challenging. Additionally, different tools require increased observation, monitoring and management.

Why is it Important to Overcome these Obstacles?

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a core component of many organizations’ digital transformation strategies. As the IoT implementation increases, so will the number of connected endpoints. Wireless advances such as Wi-Fi has become a crucial way of connecting to the network as it speeds the access in comparison with wired connections.

Cloud computing, IoT endpoints, and mobile devices have produced newer entry points and transferred them to the network edge, which in turn creates new security problems. Earlier, legacy networks used to put up a massive firewall to scan incoming and outgoing traffic. However, to enhance the effectiveness, network security must be shifted to a reliable network. Additionally, you can also consider these things:

• Incorporate SDN for agility
• Embrace complex and core security
• Understanding the APIs on networking tools
• Digital transformation
• Automation

How Does ACL Digital Help?

Having a company with security and in-depth networking capability on your side will certainly help you keep a clean and efficient network infrastructure. These days it is a mix of cloud and on-ground networking, and there tends to be a hodgepodge of different vendors and networks. Acquisitions, inorganic growth, and mergers will further tangle the setup. This is where ACL Digital comes in to establish a centralized hub for more visibility.

Network infrastructure is the base on which successful companies are built. However, it is a complex task to protect and cultivate a healthy network infrastructure. Cleaning up your network and ensuring it is robust and secure is an important task. If you are looking for the right tools and solutions to keep your network running smoothly, then look no further than ACL Digital.

You can depend on our expertise to build network infrastructure services like developing SDN controller, VNF development, NFVi development, protocol development & implementation, interoperability testing, wireless network infrastructure support and much more.

Learn how ACL Digital helps to create stable and secure network infrastructure including SDN controller, VNF development, NFVi development, and wireless support.