It’s now officially 2019. The year of network resilience? That’s where we come in. To ensure that your data center is up and running for the new year, we have the top 5 things that you need.

1. Automation

Anshul Sadana of Adobe said it perfectly – the number of engineers that run a the network doesn’t need to grow with the number of network devices they manage – this is because of automation1. Inside data centers, branch locations and even during SD-WAN deployments there can be thousands of moving parts. In order for solutions to run seamlessly automation is needed. This ensures that these parts continue to move with as little manual intervention as possible, meaning less error.

2. Monitoring

As more data centers and remote sites pop up, the ability to have eyes monitoring every device is impossible. Network outages are a very real part of branch offices and can be caused by many variables like a manual error, temperature issues or the old backhoe cutting through a fiber. All of these things which may seem small can have a large impact. The average cost of downtime is $5,600 per minute according to Gartner. Smart Out-of-Band (Smart OOB™) allows organizations to have eyes at every site, setting automated alerts through email or SMS to notify of an issue; and link to environmental sensors for temperature, humidity and door openings. This provides the ability to manage the infrastructure remotely and enables troubleshooting and remediation at the network edge. This then ensures that infrastructure can be accessed even during a system or network outage.

3. Speed

It’s a guarantee that in 2019, cloud providers will deploy more data centers that will need to be larger scale. How will these be built and deployed quickly enough to meet the market demand? Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP). This process is when managed devices in their unconfigured state request and are delivered initial setup resources through the local management network. What does this mean for network engineers? It means the provisioning process becomes automated so there is less need for manual intervention and skilled technicians.

4. Edge Computing

The increase of IoT technologies are creating a need for information to be processed closer to the edge2. The edge lightens the load on central servers and response times are fast. Network engineers understand that this is considered the new computing architecture that will distribute resources for millions or even billions of different devices and locations. Edge computing distributes the support necessary to meet the increasing need for services and applications because the data is processed is closer to the end user.

5. SD-WAN
SD-WAN deployments are increasing in popularity. Eliminating the need for expensive MPLS circuits and maintaining secure network connections, these deployments allow network engineers to utilize and aggregate high bandwidth internet connections. When paired with Smart Out-of-Band, organizations are able to ensure the network can be accessed during an outage remotely.

Ensure that your data center is secure and resilient in 2019. Opengear is constantly evolving our solutions to meet your needs. Read our white paper to learn more.