14 May 2019
Mervyn Byleveldt, solution sales manager, Africa at Cradlepoint explains why now is the time for an agile wireless network.
Enterprise networks need to be conditioned to keep pace with the speed at which cloud, mobile devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are evolving – as well as the way businesses now operate. In Africa, today’s organisations require networks – and connected devices – to be easily manageable, deployable, and maintainable. From the birth of the internet, to cloud management, modern enterprises need an agile network they can manage at exceptional scale with unparalleled visibility.
The 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Centre Networking explains: “As enterprises scale digital business initiatives, they must balance refreshing equipment and expanding capacity, while improving agility and maintaining uptime in their data centre networks.”
For many organisations looking to increase network agility, this starts by leveraging wireless, cellular-based broadband for enterprise networking. The rise of wireless is all around us, but with IoT, cloud, and 5G constantly swirling, thousands of organisations looking to 4G LTE, Gigabit LTE and soon 5G, to increase agility and future-proof their network architecture.
There are still concerns about the immediate relevance of 5G in Africa, while a significant portion of the African market is still struggling with basic connectivity. With connectivity a staple of the business world, organisations need to be prepared and future-proof their networks to ensure that whatever leaps technology makes, they can adapt. In South Africa, Frost & Sullivan predicts its telecoms sector revenue will reach R149.5bn in 2019 – so there is definitely scope.
As the landscape continues to evolve, here are some areas where IT teams can utilise wireless to improve the agility of their networks.
Operational ease
Agile IT departments are finding ways to save time and resources while adding new applications and deployments. For example, day one Internet is an on-demand style of connectivity with a painless deployment process and little to no cost to install the network. It also provides the option to relocate the network quickly and easily or open a new location with minimal advanced notice.
This makes wireless networking and software-defined networking (SDN) invaluable when networks need to be spun up and down quickly and easily, such as pop-up networks. Often wired connectivity has a lengthy installation time and is difficult to relocate. Pop-up networks allow a business to deploy an Internet connection before the network infrastructure has been developed within the business. Situations like this are a perfect opportunity for a wireless solution, offering day one deployment, a reliable connection, and bypassing installation delays.
Pop-up networks also allow businesses to utilise a wireless network while the wired network is being installed. One unique example is the opportunity for retail stores that are still in the process of opening to spin up instant networks for technologies like interactive kiosks outside the doors. People passing by can enter their email addresses into the kiosks to receive notification for when the store will open, and even shop from the store’s online catalogue resulting in an overall profit and relationship with customers before they even open the doors.
Improving network security
A secure network also increases wireless network agility by giving organisations the confidence to deploy a pop-up network and continue business operations securely, for instance with credit card transactions when sensitive data is involved.
This also extends to enhanced IoT device security. When combined with SDN, Software-defined Perimeter (SDP) makes it easy to connect IoT devices to applications and resources quickly and securely. Multiple device types can be connected with SDPs, including Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and even Docker containers. For unsupported devices, such as IoT sensors or security cameras, admins can easily connect the device to the perimeter network behind a router acting as an SDP Gateway.
This technique adds a layer of security to an IoT deployment, reducing the attack surface by integrating IoT devices into an enterprise network. This can also be combined with LTE air-gapped connectivity, which prevents a compromised IoT device from infiltrating your core business information systems. Data is protected, and the rest of the network is secure from breaches that could occur through IoT devices.
Moving to the cloud
Cloud networking provides centralised management, device and application visibility, real-time web-based diagnostics, reporting and control. These benefits provide more agility by making a company savvier within their networking architecture. Organisations can scale IT infrastructure resources both up and down to meet unpredictable usage requirements, while also saving time with instant updates from one location.
Cloud management offers zero-touch deployment to remotely deploy and manage all the devices on a business’s network without the need for on-site IT staff. Cloud management also provides instant insights to WAN/LAN analytics and visibility to manage data usage, performance, and costs.
Adapting to the pace of technology advancements
Cloud networking provides centralised management, device and application visibility, real-time web-based diagnostics, reporting and control
The prevalence of IoT is increasing the need for business connectivity. Whilst 5G for business use is potentially longer way off for some parts of Africa than other parts of the world, it is a technology that will be implemented in the future. Earlier this year, data-only network operator Rain announced that it has become the first company in South Africa to launch a commercial 5G network. Partnering with Huawei, it has deployed several 5G sites in Johannesburg and is delivering services using the 3.6GHz band.
There will slowly start to be a reliance on connections to 4G LTE to ensure continuous coverage. 5G won’t replace LTE; it will continue to evolve along with LTE – and the two will work together to handle different types of traffic most efficiently. 5G will allow for higher bandwidth, lower latency, and more favourable data plans. Organisations that want to take advantage of these benefits will need to evolve from legacy networks to an agile wireless network.
Organisations will want to develop a clear picture of how 5G fits within their existing technology and business roadmaps and how it will impact the network design. An agile wireless network will help to seamlessly transfer networks to LTE and 5G and better embrace IoT.
This pathway to 5G will be pioneered with a variety of use-cases across a variety of industries. In medicine, tele-health frameworks are already using 5G-ready routers to enable remote practitioner access to patients using high-resolution cameras, 4K video, and remote medical equipment. Providing a remote subject matter expert dramatically increases patient outcomes at a vastly reduced cost, essentially creating an ‘Uber for doctors’ – where patients no longer need to wait days or weeks for an appointment.
The same principle can be applied to other industries, for example the oil & gas industry, where specialist knowledge is needed in hazardous or hostile environments. In retail, smart stores are already leveraging 4G LTE connectivity and leading the way in testing and implementing customer engagement and operations strategies that someday will be adopted across virtually all industries.
With Gigabit LTE now available and 5G coming around the corner, wireless is poised to overtake wired WAN as the link of choice — both for failover and primary connectivity — for enterprises of all shapes and sizes. Organisations across all industries will need to be adaptable and ensure their wireless network is agile, to allow for new developments in technology and keep up with the increasing pace of change. n
