The importance of optimized cloud network infrastructure by NTT

By Gary Middleton

Vice President: Networking GTM

To keep up with the pace of business change and digital transformation, operational models are evolving rapidly and cloud-first strategies are rising. The number of cloud environments has grown – yet, many organizations underestimate the requirement for network transformation when deploying cloud solutions. A sound IT strategy that includes hybrid cloud, underpinned by the network, is essential to achieving business agility and providing a stronger footing for future growth.

Agility a key driver to transform cloud

Hybrid cloud is seen as a critical enabler of agility and an accelerator of business objectives – 84.8% of organizations agree that cloud is more important to their organization today that it was last year, while just over two-thirds (66.9%) say improving their business agility and ability to respond to change will be important over the next 12 months. (NTT Hybrid Cloud Report February 2021).

One of the biggest considerations in the design of hybrid environments is making data and applications available to a distributed workforce so they can make informed, real-time decisions. Connecting multiple users in different locations to voice, video and collaboration tools requires network infrastructure services that do not compromise the performance of these tools, thereby impacting the immersive experiences they intend to create.

Managing security risks

At the same time, organizations must continuously enhance security posture and respond rapidly to mitigate threats, or risk jeopardizing their corporate reputation and full protection of employees. As they become more cloud-native and hybrid, the requirement to modernize existing applications to greater support digital transformation objectives intensifies, thereby expanding the attack surface.

Security threats and the number of vulnerabilities continue to grow, and are unlikely to decline. Enterprises therefore need a DevOps strategy that includes security to ensure applications are both innovative and secure. Cloud security should also be an enabler for agility – which means the automation of security policies is key.

How are you connecting to the cloud?

The more clouds you manage, the more complex your network requirements become – and the more critical it is to architect a network that delivers the advantages of hybrid cloud to your organization.

Some factors to consider are:

• Fast, secure connectivity from the data center to the cloud, using cross connects, VPN and virtual connections.
• Modernizing infrastructure and leveraging artificial intelligence and automation though software-defined and virtual network services.
• Running virtual and container applications requires the network to be carefully considered so that user experience isn’t impacted (load balancing, security and acceleration of traffic on software-defined infrastructure).
• Secure networking, ensuring embedded and consistent security across hybrid infrastructure.

Optimize networking in, to and across hybrid cloud environments.