Planning For The New Network: Ten Trends Rewriting The Rules For Midsized Business

With more than three out of four midsize companies now describing their business as being “network dependent,” network planning has become an operational make-or-break proposition. The new business network creates value by eliminating barriers of time and distance, enabling workers to access applications and connect with each other as if they were down the hall–even when they are around town or across the country. This is a sea change from the days of simply linking “local” workers and applications within a single office location.

The changing mix of users, devices and applications on the new network is shattering classic traffic planning assumptions. Historically, LAN and WAN designs have been based on a local-centric 80/20 rule for traffic flow. That is, 80 percent of traffic remained local within the LAN and only 20 percent travelled beyond to the WAN. This tenet has been turned upside down. Industry heavyweights now forecast that 80 percent of a company’s traffic is likely to flow outside the LAN, significantly increasing performance requirements for WAN and Internet connections. Ten trends are driving the new network transition. It is essential that information technology (IT) teams learn how to plan for them.