The Business Cycle of Tech Consumption: The Need for Design Patterns and New Operating Models

In recent years, the enterprise tech sector has witnessed a unique cycle of overconsumption. This surge in technological investments and acquisitions isn’t merely a trend; it reflects the rapid digitization of business processes and the indispensable nature of tech infrastructure today. But like any cycle, there is an inevitable shift towards optimization after this period of overconsumption. Today, businesses are pivoting towards grand transformation projects that fuse the cloud’s agility with on-prem resources, integrating Network, Security, OT, and IT into seamless platforms. These transformative steps…

Multicloud Connect, Secure, Automate and Control

The ONUG Community of Global 2000 firms spoke loud and clear at ONUG Fall 2022 in Manhattan, hosted by Raytheon. Enterprise computing is multicloud computing. The community knows multicloud delivers the widest range of options and choices for developer and infrastructure teams to address business requirements. Also, it was clear that multicloud is being required by regulators to mitigate concentration risk. The point that became crystal clear is that every IT organization needs a multicloud strategy and most importantly, an operational plan. This new thinking…

Your Firewall is Now Everywhere — And Nowhere

Network security has been stuck in a box for too long. Much of what we know consists of perimeter or zone-based rules that limit which network segments can talk to which other network segments over which ports. The workhorse of this world has been the firewall appliance, interconnecting network segments and enforcing these rules. In the meantime, applications have moved to the public cloud and users have left the building. Hybrid work is challenging the very notion of the enterprise WAN. So what does this…

A Cloud Guru: 4 ways to converge networks and cloud

It’s a challenge for most organizations to find the best ways to build environments that bridge their legacy and newer hybrid or multi-cloud networks. Whether it’s competitive pressure, time to market, innovation, or the demand for remote work, organizations now have pressing strategic business reasons to shift to the cloud. But research has shown that the gulf between network and cloud teams can be one of the biggest inhibitors to cloud adoption success. Recently, A Cloud Guru’s Drew Firment sat down with Padraig O’Connor, a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE)…

Prepare your WAN and network security architecture for a hybrid work future

Corporate networks have evolved over the years around the notion of physical spaces — offices, retail stores, factory floors, production studios, and data centers. We predominantly used client-server applications, with the server-side hosted in private data centers, and the client-side running on desktop and laptop computers at physical office locations. We accommodated remote users, business travelers, and the occasional home-based employees using the dreaded three-letter acronym — VPN. VPNs were deemed a necessary evil, both by the end-users who tolerated the clunky user experience and…

Cigna: Overcoming Challenges and Leading the Digital Revolution in Healthcare

Healthcare costs are rising, and the current COVID-19 crisis is sure to create financial hardship for both patients and healthcare facilities. Providing affordable healthcare will become even more of a priority. Digital healthcare promises to be the catalyst for reducing costs and improving patient outcomes. Cigna is leading the digital revolution in the healthcare industry. Eric Reed, Cigna SVP of Global Infrastructure Services and Application Operations, spoke at last year’s ONUG conference about the opportunities opened up by the digital transformation, as well as the…

Driven by ONUG and the IT Community, the Future of SD-WAN Depends on Responsible Service Provider Delivery

Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) has come a long way since ONUG ignited the conversation about the market and practical use cases for this promising new technology just four years ago. Eighty-seven percent of 800 network management executives use or plan to use SD-WAN within the next two years, according to a March 2017 IDC survey of mid-size and large companies with at least 10 locations and representing a variety of industries. SD-WAN sales are predicted to grow at a 69 percent compound annual growth rate, reaching $8.05 billion in 2021, notes IDC’s Worldwide SD-WAN Forecast for 2017–2021.