Today's Top WAN Issues and How to Solve Them - Part 1
The top pain points associated with Internet-based WANs
June 14, 2021

Jay Botelho
LiveAction

Share this

Enterprise wide-area networks (WANs) have undergone an incredible transformation over the past several years. More often than not, they're hybrid, offering multiple connection paths between WANs. This provides many benefits but also makes them more challenging to manage than ever before. Managed WAN services, such as MPLS, continue to play a significant role in enterprise networks, but the Internet has become a feasible WAN connectivity option that is typically less costly than MPLS and is actually essential in the case of direct cloud connectivity.

As a result, many enterprises adopt custom hybrid networks or full-blown SD-WAN implementations, combining managed WAN services and Internet to address various business requirements. A whopping 98% of enterprises are currently engaged in SD-WAN deployments. Nearly 40% (37%) of enterprises have fully implemented SD-WAN implementations in 2021, compared to just 28% two years ago. However, by their very nature, hybrid enterprise networks are complex and difficult to visualize, troubleshoot and optimize.

So, based on fascinating insights from new EMA research, let's examine today's top WAN challenges and what you need to know to address them.

In Part 1 of this series, we'll explore the top pain points associated with Internet-based WANs specifically:

1. Managing Multiple ISP Relationships

Nearly one-third of organizations struggle with the complexity of juggling multiple ISP relationships to procure and manage connectivity. In which scenario is each ISP most effective? Is splitting traffic between them the right move? If so, what's the best way to determine the allocation? These are just some of the questions that undoubtedly come up. Beyond that, you must also manage SLAs, monitor for outages or slowdowns, reroute traffic as needed and more.

For example, let's say you split traffic between two ISPs — on for web traffic and the other for all web-hosted productivity apps (email, Salesforce, etc.). This works well until one ISP goes down, in which case you'd need to reroute all traffic to the other. That's when traffic prioritization issues cascade into poor connectivity that'll degrade user experiences and hurt your business. These types of circumstances are why you must be capable of properly visualizing, classifying and prioritizing traffic across all ISPs at all times.

2. Security Risks

Roughly 30% of IT professionals see security risks as a top ongoing challenge when it comes to their Internet-based WAN. You have little control over security once traffic hits the public Internet, and are often forced to rely on users to follow security best practices. As more users are working remotely, access from the public Internet and connections from it to your hosted services and applications are more exposed to security threats.

This path can allow adversaries to avoid most of the security controls IT departments often rely upon, such as firewall rules, IDS/IPS, etc., making corporate data protection subject to individual employees' security practices (or lack thereof). Employees may lack high-quality IDS/IPS on their home networks, making them more vulnerable to phishing attempts and various malware attacks. In most cases, the lack of close IT control puts corporate data directly in jeopardy.

3. Overall Application Performance

Maintaining application performance is a top issue for 28% of organizations this year. You can't effectively manage application performance without traffic prioritization, which is virtually impossible to enforce once traffic hits the public Internet. With a hub/spoke architecture, you can contract for a big pipe, and average a large number of users across that pipe to ensure consistent performance and a reasonable cost per user. But as we drive towards more and more remote users and locations, it is more difficult to manage all of these remote Internet connections, and guarantee performance.

For example, imagine a video production studio that needs to transfer massive, 100GB+ files regularly. Even when the employees are working at the office, and assuming a 1Gbps Internet connection, transferring a 100GB file could consume the network for over 13 minutes. We also know most remote offices and home networks have 100 — 300Mbps Internet connections, so it's easy to see how a single large transfer could bottleneck a poorly managed network. As networks become more complex and distributed, performance management can be incredibly troublesome and even out of your control in certain circumstances.

4. Inconsistent Quality Across Multiple ISPs

Nearly one in four organizations see inconsistent quality across multiple ISPs as a significant challenge for their business. This is because each ISP uses its own technologies and rolls out updates at its own speed. And IPSs don't treat all areas equally; they're focused on servicing the broadest population possible with minimum investment. This can lead to underserved geographies and poor quality for organizations operating within them.

In a given city, ISPs may provide more bandwidth to business parks than residential areas and the maximum bandwidth available to you may depend on the zip code in which you and your employees operate. The maximum available connection speeds and the demand in the particular neighborhood can both limit bandwidth. As users, and therefore the network, become increasingly distributed, controlling user experiences will become extremely challenging.

Read Start with Part 2 of this series, in which we'll outline today's most high-profile SD-WAN deployment challenges, as well as best practices you can use to identify, evaluate and overcome the various issues associated with modern WANs.

Go to: Today's Top WAN Issues and How to Solve Them - Part 2

Jay Botelho is Senior Director of Product Management at LiveAction
Share this

The Latest

March 18, 2024

Gartner has highlighted the top trends that will impact technology providers in 2024: Generative AI (GenAI) is dominating the technical and product agenda of nearly every tech provider ...

March 15, 2024

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 4 - Part 1, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) discusses artificial intelligence and network management ...

March 14, 2024

The integration and maintenance of AI-enabled Software as a Service (SaaS) applications have emerged as pivotal points in enterprise AI implementation strategies, offering both significant challenges and promising benefits. Despite the enthusiasm surrounding AI's potential impact, the reality of its implementation presents hurdles. Currently, over 90% of enterprises are grappling with limitations in integrating AI into their tech stack ...

March 13, 2024

In the intricate landscape of IT infrastructure, one critical component often relegated to the back burner is Active Directory (AD) forest recovery — an oversight with costly consequences ...

March 12, 2024

eBPF is a technology that allows users to run custom programs inside the Linux kernel, which changes the behavior of the kernel and makes execution up to 10x faster(link is external) and more efficient for key parts of what makes our computing lives work. That includes observability, networking and security ...

March 11, 2024

Data mesh, an increasingly important decentralized approach to data architecture and organizational design, focuses on treating data as a product, emphasizing domain-oriented data ownership, self-service tools and federated governance. The 2024 State of the Data Lakehouse report from Dremio presents evidence of the growing adoption of data mesh architectures in enterprises ... The report highlights that the drive towards data mesh is increasingly becoming a business strategy to enhance agility and speed in problem-solving and innovation ...

March 07, 2024
In this digital era, consumers prefer a seamless user experience, and here, the significance of performance testing cannot be overstated. Application performance testing is essential in ensuring that your software products, websites, or other related systems operate seamlessly under varying conditions. However, the cost of poor performance extends beyond technical glitches and slow load times; it can directly affect customer satisfaction and brand reputation. Understand the tangible and intangible consequences of poor application performance and how it can affect your business ...
March 06, 2024

Too much traffic can crash a website ... That stampede of traffic is even more horrifying when it's part of a malicious denial of service attack ... These attacks are becoming more common, more sophisticated and increasingly tied to ransomware-style demands. So it's no wonder that the threat of DDoS remains one of the many things that keep IT and marketing leaders up at night ...

March 05, 2024

Today, applications serve as the backbone of businesses, and therefore, ensuring optimal performance has never been more critical. This is where application performance monitoring (APM) emerges as an indispensable tool, empowering organizations to safeguard their applications proactively, match user expectations, and drive growth. But APM is not without its challenges. Choosing to implement APM is a path that's not easily realized, even if it offers great benefits. This blog deals with the potential hurdles that may manifest when you actualize your APM strategy in your IT application environment ...

March 04, 2024

This year's Super Bowl drew in viewership of nearly 124 million viewers and made history as the most-watched live broadcast event since the 1969 moon landing. To support this spike in viewership, streaming companies like YouTube TV, Hulu and Paramount+ began preparing their IT infrastructure months in advance to ensure an exceptional viewer experience without outages or major interruptions. New Relic conducted a survey to understand the importance of a seamless viewing experience and the impact of outages during major streaming events such as the Super Bowl ...