South African firm Dimension Data’s 2013 Network Barometer Report has shown enterprise mobility, cloud computing and other disruptive technology trends are revolutionising the delivery and consumption of ICT services by organisations.
Dimension Data said to adequately accommodate the new trends, architecture of organisations’ communication networks needs a facelift which would not happen overnight.
Raoul Tecala, Dimension Data’s business development director for network integration, said the company in 2012 predicted there would be rapid network architecture adjustment.
This adjustment he said would be in favour of growing bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and enterprise mobility demands.
“Most campus networks consist of approximately 80 per cent of wired ports serving individual users, and 20 per cent wireless LAN (WLAN) ports supporting multiple users. However, today, users don’t want to be tethered to their desks, and as a result, are putting pressure on organizations to facilitate enterprise mobility,” Tecala said.
“In addition to this pressure from end-users, networks that are 80 per cent wireless will cost far less to roll out than traditional, predominantly wired networks. And the good news is they will also create a strong foundation for lower operational costs, because they’ll be easier to manage, provide unified access, and require less power and cooling.
“We predict that, the combination of these factors will eventually turn the 80:20 ratio on its head so that future networks will be 80 per cent wireless and 20 per cent wired.”
He added that networks would be compelled to accelerate the refresh of their networks’ access layer.
