Five Networking Resolutions For 2009

It is time to ring out your old-school networking. Let Blue Coat help make 2009 the year you get your network in shape (both performance-wise and economically). To kick off a great year, here are some resolutions to set for yourself and the team.

Resolution 1

Cut The Fat Out Of IT Expenses (And Consolidate Resources).

Get the New Year off to a bang by saving money. Start by reducing your bandwidth costs dramatically, using byte and object caching. Also start shifting to cheaper Internet links, while enabling resilient branch connectivity architecture. Work to reduce recreational traffic from 50 percent of your WAN link to 10 percent, while increasing available bandwidth by 1000 times for enterprise-rich media. Next, move toward centralised and consolidated data and server infrastructure. You can accelerate centralised file access, e-mail and critical branch office services to keep users happy. You can also eliminate branch office storage and backup equipment, along with administrative and management costs, by consolidating data into well-managed data centres. Blue Coat can help with all of these get-in-shape exercises.

Resolution 2

Live Healthier, Knowing What’s On Your Network.

Keeping your network healthy begins with first knowing what’s on your network. Blue Coat will give you the big picture with a network assessment – showing precisely what’s running on your network. Your customised report includes easy-to-digest graphics and performance statistics that detail the range of network applications in use (and their impact on available bandwidth). PacketShaper will be your diagnostic tool to ascertain whether the get-well prescription for your network is WAN Optimisation, Traffic Shaping, or both.

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Resolution 3

Lose Wait On The WAN

Cutting down on the sluggishness of your applications not only increases employee productivity, but also ensures that critical enterprise processes flow smoothly. By losing the latency, you’ll enjoy healthier competitiveness and faster responsiveness to customers.

Resolution 4

Be A Better Listener To Mobile Users

You (or someone on your team) probably control bandwidth and performance for the enterprise WAN that links your physical sites. However, most enterprises have an increasing number of telecommuting and mobile users, who access the enterprise using many broadband and Internet hops and a secure tunnel. Under these circumstances, can you realistically help them if they complain that it took too long to access their data, or if they’ve poisoned their laptops with malware? Not really. But you can help them by preventing the complaints in the first place. Start by looking into extending secure acceleration to mobile and home users.

Resolution 5

Expand your horizon with new architecture

Feeling stuck in the mundane role of a network plumber? It’s time to manage your career and understand what your network is carrying. Once you know, you’ll be on level turf with the application architects. At that point, you can participate in the strategic IT evolution in your company. Then you can have a say in such initiatives as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), video content delivery, and Web 2.0-based applications.

Young is VP-Sales, Asia Pacific, Blue Coat Systems.