As workloads are moving to public and private clouds, traditional legacy enterprise networks continue to lose ground in favour of virtual cloud networks that built for connectivity. Applications and data are now distributed across many data centres, multiple clouds, branch offices, and edge devices.
The percentage of workloads in traditional on-premise data centres is projected to shrink dramatically—from 55 percent in 2018 to 41 percent by 2021, according to a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting last year for networking provider VMware.
Traditional networks centred around a massive data centre no longer prove to be efficient. They are unable to keep up with the evolving business needs of enterprises, which include uninterrupted network connectivity, automation, scalability and built-in security.
The same Forrester research found that 85% of the computing capacity in legacy networking remains unused, and manual human errors cost businesses 35% network downtime on average.
Legacy networks are not automated, offer limited security, and lack the connection from the data centre to the cloud or the edge. It means business data cannot move between applications, which results in outdated and inflexible processes.
Today’s networks must be agile and flexible to meet demands. Virtual cloud networks (VCNs) thrive on these premises, being able to support new business models, the cloud, and the internet of things (IoT).
Other benefits include increased network uptime and enforced built-in security. Virtual cloud networking can reduce unplanned downtime to almost zero, minimising losses and increasing end-user productivity.
Virtual cloud networks use a networking model focus on applications and data, not hardware infrastructure, which enables end-to-end connectivity and security from the start. This software-centred networking model is built to drive value out of the existing infrastructure, reducing costs and simplifying infrastructure management.
The most important advantage of virtual cloud networking is, undoubtedly, its flexibility and scalability. It is built to evolve as your business grows, maximising business opportunities, increasing networking performance and offering long-term stability.
Does your IT infrastructure provide the scalability and performance your business requires?
VMware’s cloud technologies assist organisations to fully and securely leverage VMware hybrid clouds and native public clouds for increased agility, accelerated innovation, and optimised costs.
