If you’ve been a binger of Netflix or any other streaming service, or have spent any significant time immersed in online gaming, you were a key player in how the wheels of business were able to keep turning during the first crucial months of the pandemic. If that sounds strange, read on.
The ability of millions of users to stream bandwidth-heavy data for entertainment essentially laid the technology foundation for tens of millions to work from home (WFH) now. And because of those solutions evolving over the past decade, our collective network was ready to handle the increased needs of remote work. That is, of course, assuming that streaming, gaming and working aren’t all happening at the same time.
The streaming and gaming trends, more than anything else, continuously improved home networks over the last decade to become the digital foundation essential for WFH capability. Without that evolution, home networks to in-house data centers, colos and cloud would have been much harder and more expensive for enterprises to address, and likely impossible to roll out effectively in a short time period.
“When I led the systems management team at Netflix, our focus was entirely on the client experience, tuning both the client and the impact on network resources at the home user location,” said Edward Wustenhoff, infrastructure expert and partner at StrataFusion Group. “As service providers started competing, they all realized that robust network capabilities were needed at home. For the last decade that part of the network has been improving significantly as a result. Moving forward, 5G is the logical next step to bring robust network capability from the home to the mobile office.”
The major change now is really about social behavior and how people continue to collaborate, innovate and become even more productive in expanded digital environments. A recent blog highlights the tools CIOs need to communicate and engage, but that is just the first step. Tech leaders also need to embrace transformation for the long term:
- Security should be the foundation of everything we do. Ensure your culture is change-ready and security-minded by empowering employees to secure their home offices. If you don’t have a dedicated information security team, it may be time to look at CISO support.
- Upgrading crucial equipment will be necessary to capitalize on new models of work. In addition to datacenters, colo and cloud, WiFi-6 and 5G are speeding up the ability to do more remotely, and the ability to handle larger amounts of data will only increase.
- Embracing IOT adds another layer to the mountains of data being generated. In addition to WFH activities, data will provide crucial insights around the billions of connected devices – in our homes, in connected cities and in industries, like healthcare.
Clearly, a commitment to transformation is more crucial to the health and continuity of business in ways we never imagined. As social distancing seeps deeper into culture around the world, locality of employees is changing, which is expected to accelerate. While it may be a bit of an exaggeration to say that streaming saved business, it wouldn’t be by much. So don’t expect that to change any time soon because the WFH movement is expected to continue in some industries as the preferred work solution even after the pandemic recedes.
That means enterprise network architecture is more important than ever to enabling the future of business. This shift clearly shows the need for new thinking in infrastructure of operations. And it’s just the beginning.
Learn more about how we help clients achieve their transformation goals.
Author:
Edward Wustenhoff 2020
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