
Author: Frank Carius
Enterprise Architect / Partner – connect on LinkedIn
Companies are increasingly using cloud services, and not just since COVID19. This means that there are significantly more users at company locations who require more bandwidth to the cloud service. The hybrid way of working in the home office also places new demands on their network in terms of access to internal services and the cloud. Most companies today already know and use VPN solutions, but these solutions are often not optimized.
In this blog article, you’ll learn about the challenges your network faces during a cloud deployment and, most importantly, why you should always conduct an assessment before implementing a new service. You’ll also learn why you shouldn’t underestimate the impact of a transition on your own network.
Cloud services: Exploiting advantages and recognizing risks
The use of services in the cloud comes with many advantages. You do not have to install and maintain your own servers, and there is no need for major investments, since billing is carried out per user, per month or according to intensity of use. Once the necessary preparations have been made regarding identities and authentication, the client can be distributed, the users can be instructed, and then the use of the service can begin.
However, the risks are often overlooked, because a cloud service poses completely different challenges for the transmission networks compared to local services. In the LAN, we are talking about gigabit bandwidths, latencies in the single-digit millisecond range and dedicated connections. With cloud services, the distance between client and service is much greater, and accordingly, longer latency times must be considered. But your firewall, Internet connection, name resolution and other components also face many new challenges, which you should review before implementing a new cloud solution.
A network assessment clarifies and defines the requirements and ensures that no nasty surprises await in later operation. Do you want to take the risk of having to stop a rollout of a new application because it doesn’t work after all, or that additional data volumes will affect other services and, in the worst case, make them unusable?
Video conferencing and network load: A balancing act
The introduction of Microsoft Teams, WebEx, GoToMeeting and other conferencing solutions pose the greatest challenges to the network, as packet loss, jitter and protocol limitations have a direct impact on audio and video quality. However, for services such as OneDrive or Mail, it is not as critical that packets are transferred as quickly as possible, as cache and offline functions provide relief for the network.
However, AV solutions are predestined for network problems, as the real-time traffic places special demands on the network and the amount of data often literally skyrockets. For example, a site with 100 employees and only 20% meeting usage can quickly add 40-50 MBit of additional continuous load to a WAN line, putting a noticeable strain on VPN or other cloud services.
Therefore, in most cases issues with conferencing solutions are the ones that trigger escalation, which you can prevent from the outset by performing a network assessment.
Five reasons for a network assessment
Why “It’ll be fine” is not a network strategy
If you have been taking the “It’ll be fine” or “We have enough bandwidth” approach to rolling out new applications up to now, then you may have been lucky or tolerated the odd problem whose cause you were never able to conclusively determine.
It is always more time-consuming and ultimately more expensive to analyze the various error scenarios with expert knowledge after the fact than to create the prerequisites as part of a network assessment.