TEST EQUIPMENT & TOOLS
ave you benchmarked normal
H
bandwidth demand and
application response times for
the organisation?
A re you monitoring bandwidth
demand changes over time from
users and applications?
D o you have sufficient excess
capacity to support the demands
of virtual and underlying physical
environments?
I s the operating software up-to-
date with the latest revisions?
Based upon answers to your
assessment, you may need to
adjust conditions that you’re
tracking or make upgrades in your
IT infrastructure to ensure it is up
to the task.
Nex t, ta ke a clo s e l o o k at t h e
state of your s ecurity defe nc e s .
A s net work us ers con s u m e m o re
d ata, y o ur expos ure to v ir u s e s ,
ransomwa re a nd DDo S at ta c k s
wi ll i nc rea s e propo r tio nate l y .
H ow wel l does yo ur int r u s io n-
d ete ct i on s ys tem (IDS) h a nd l e
encr y pted data traf fic? D o y o u
have suf ficient protectio n in
place aga ins t cyberatta c k s ,
i nc lu di ng a l l the l ates t p atc h e s
and u pdates ? It ma y s e e m
obvi ou s , but of ten it’ s t h e l it t l e
t hi ngs that a re overlo o ke d .
And finally, keep a watchful eye
on your network with the latest
monitoring tools. Most legacy
monitoring and management
systems measure latency from
an end user’s perspective to the
applicable web service, but not
all issues will be immediately
apparent to users. Others simply
report uptime and availability of a
physical piece of infrastructure.
In order to see how applications
and related services are really
performing, it’s important
to maintain comprehensive
visibility and control of network
infrastructure. This real-time
visibility allows IT teams to
recognise unusual traffic behaviour
or anomalies much more quickly
to head off serious performance
issues or security threats.
Moreover, the ability to correlate
data metrics in intelligent ways
can even foreshadow risks that a
critical service will begin to face in
the coming hours, days or weeks.
As your network migrates to
higher speeds, don’t forget to
evaluate service level agreements
(SLAs). Even greater demand is
being driven by access to gigabit
internet speeds, coupled with the
increase in business applications
that leverage the storage and
‘Just 3.5%
of the world’s
population are
able to access
gigabit
internet
currently,
but those
numbers are
changing
rapidly.’
compute power of the cloud,
such as Amazon Web Services
and Microsoft Azure. Your IT
team still needs to troubleshoot
performance and manage quality
of experience for these burgeoning
workloads, so be sure to factor
this growth into the SLA.
Full speed ahead
We are still at the start of the
gigabit revolution. Just 3.5% of
the world’s population are able to
access gigabit internet currently,
but those numbers are changing
rapidly. New deployments are
being reported all the time, and
LTE and 5G installations are
expected in the very near future.
The transformative power of high-
speed internet is powering an
explosion in disruptive innovation
and business applications.
Looking to the future, with the
right strategy and preparation,
you can take full advantage of the
potential that gigabit access has
to offer. The key is to do so while
preventing any harmful impacts
on network per formance, security
and quality of experience.
For further information visit:
www.viavisolutions.com
September 2017 | 25