WAN trends for 2012: Cloud computing, virtualization, SaaS and more

Slide show

WAN trends for 2012: Cloud computing, virtualization, SaaS and more

Tessa Parmenter

Cloud computing is taking shape as one of the top IT trends for 2012. The promises of cloud computing will finally be realized as Software as a Service (SaaS) adoption and hybrid cloud deployments.

"Hybrid cloud matured through the hype phase in 2011 … and SaaS adoption will become a standard in 2012," said Miles Kelly, senior director of product marketing at Riverbed

    Requires Free Membership to View

    Login

    SearchEnterpriseWAN.com members gain immediate and unlimited access to breaking industry news, best practices for designing and managing Wide Area Networks, WAN Security, and more -- all at no cost. Join me on SearchEnterpriseWAN.com today!

    Kate Gerwig, Editorial Director

    By submitting your registration information to SearchEnterpriseWAN.com you agree to receive email communications from TechTarget and TechTarget partners. We encourage you to read our Privacy Policy which contains important disclosures about how we collect and use your registration and other information. If you reside outside of the United States, by submitting this registration information you consent to having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States. Your use of SearchEnterpriseWAN.com is governed by our Terms of Use. You may contact us at webmaster@TechTarget.com.

Technology.

Cloud computing adoption will affect the wide area network (WAN) in three ways in 2012. First, SaaS adoption will drive enterprises to consider broadband Internet connectivity to branches. Network engineers will also be responsible for accelerating these applications, as their performance is sure to suffer across the long distances imposed by WANs. Secondly, cloud services will force enterprises to adopt virtualization -- whether to enable cloud deployments or to accelerate those services via a virtual WAN optimization controller or virtual application delivery controller. Lastly, the possibility of cloud provider outages means replicating data in and out of the cloud will become essential for enterprises needing high availability (HA).

This emphasis on data redundancy leads us to our next trend for 2012 that affects the WAN: Big data growth.

 


Back to top