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Hybrid and Remote Work Increases Workloads and Poses Challenges to Remote Network Experiences

87% of organizations allocated budgets to update network tools for remote and hybrid users, but only 32% have been successful

The ongoing shift to hybrid and remote work environments has resulted in key changes to the roles and priorities of network administrators in order to address new connectivity challenges and prioritize and preserve a secure, productive end-user experience, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) and Auvik.

The report examined the remote and hybrid work paradigm through the lens of network operations teams — 73% of which reported an increase in workloads, either slightly or significantly, following the shift from traditional to hybrid work environments.

In Episode 2 of the MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Podcast, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA, discusses the network management impacts of remote work.

Click here for a direct MP3 download of Episode 2

Results from the report demonstrate that the top challenges associated with the remote work experience are poor home Wi-Fi setups, distance from applications, and poor ISP quality.

To combat these obstacles, 72% of surveyed organizations have deployed network hardware to the homes of remote workers, including network security devices (62.7%) and Wi-Fi access points (54.1%).

Additionally, 90% of organizations with hybrid workers shared that they had to upgrade Wi-Fi networks to address increased office mobility requirements.

"These results reinforce that although people are beginning to return to the office, hybrid work is here to stay and is resulting in significant changes for network administrators," said Alex Hoff, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer for Auvik. "Although IT teams no longer own all the assets utilized daily by employees, they are still responsible for these operations. And despite not being able to directly exert control over employees' home networks, they can have visibility over these environments with network monitoring tools. Implementing network visibility software helps IT professionals overcome these new obstacles by providing the ability to maintain visibility and control amid changing work circumstances."

Additional findings from the report include:

■ Nearly 49% of network operations teams started working with a new tool vendor to help them manage the network experience of remote workers.

■ 76% of organizations need to unify how they manage network access policies across on-premises networks and remote users.

■ Remote desktop access tools (deployed by 81% of companies) remain the go-to solution for troubleshooting remote users' problems, but endpoint monitoring tools are increasingly popular (79%).

■ Although 87% have allocated funds in their budget to update network operation tools for remote and hybrid user support, only 32% of organizations shared that they have been successful in doing so.

■ The top issues employees most often report when they are working from home are VPN access issues, followed by performance issues with SaaS applications.

"96% of IT organizations said they are supporting hybrid workers, and 30% of all employees who work remotely are hybrid workers," said Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, EMA. "With employees working both at home and in the office, it is important to have the assets and software necessary to support them in both locations. This means enterprises must invest in more secure remote access solutions that offer integrated network security automation, centralized management, and network optimization or network enhancement, as well as network observability tools that are able to monitor performance across disparate locations."

Methodology: Auvik commissioned EMA, an independent research firm, to survey 354 IT professionals directly involved in supporting the networking requirements of employees who work from home.

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Hybrid and Remote Work Increases Workloads and Poses Challenges to Remote Network Experiences

87% of organizations allocated budgets to update network tools for remote and hybrid users, but only 32% have been successful

The ongoing shift to hybrid and remote work environments has resulted in key changes to the roles and priorities of network administrators in order to address new connectivity challenges and prioritize and preserve a secure, productive end-user experience, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) and Auvik.

The report examined the remote and hybrid work paradigm through the lens of network operations teams — 73% of which reported an increase in workloads, either slightly or significantly, following the shift from traditional to hybrid work environments.

In Episode 2 of the MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Podcast, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA, discusses the network management impacts of remote work.

Click here for a direct MP3 download of Episode 2

Results from the report demonstrate that the top challenges associated with the remote work experience are poor home Wi-Fi setups, distance from applications, and poor ISP quality.

To combat these obstacles, 72% of surveyed organizations have deployed network hardware to the homes of remote workers, including network security devices (62.7%) and Wi-Fi access points (54.1%).

Additionally, 90% of organizations with hybrid workers shared that they had to upgrade Wi-Fi networks to address increased office mobility requirements.

"These results reinforce that although people are beginning to return to the office, hybrid work is here to stay and is resulting in significant changes for network administrators," said Alex Hoff, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer for Auvik. "Although IT teams no longer own all the assets utilized daily by employees, they are still responsible for these operations. And despite not being able to directly exert control over employees' home networks, they can have visibility over these environments with network monitoring tools. Implementing network visibility software helps IT professionals overcome these new obstacles by providing the ability to maintain visibility and control amid changing work circumstances."

Additional findings from the report include:

■ Nearly 49% of network operations teams started working with a new tool vendor to help them manage the network experience of remote workers.

■ 76% of organizations need to unify how they manage network access policies across on-premises networks and remote users.

■ Remote desktop access tools (deployed by 81% of companies) remain the go-to solution for troubleshooting remote users' problems, but endpoint monitoring tools are increasingly popular (79%).

■ Although 87% have allocated funds in their budget to update network operation tools for remote and hybrid user support, only 32% of organizations shared that they have been successful in doing so.

■ The top issues employees most often report when they are working from home are VPN access issues, followed by performance issues with SaaS applications.

"96% of IT organizations said they are supporting hybrid workers, and 30% of all employees who work remotely are hybrid workers," said Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, EMA. "With employees working both at home and in the office, it is important to have the assets and software necessary to support them in both locations. This means enterprises must invest in more secure remote access solutions that offer integrated network security automation, centralized management, and network optimization or network enhancement, as well as network observability tools that are able to monitor performance across disparate locations."

Methodology: Auvik commissioned EMA, an independent research firm, to survey 354 IT professionals directly involved in supporting the networking requirements of employees who work from home.

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As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...