Key Points:
- The global network infrastructure market is predicted to reach $256 billion by 2028, the Wi-Fi 7 market topped $1 billion in 2024, network and cloud security investments achieved all-time highs by the end of 2023, and the edge computing market is set to grow by 1108% over the next eight years.
- Technologies like Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 will deliver network services quicker to internal users and will present a virtually boundless number of network IP addresses for new devices as they are added. Edge computing will continue to be deployed at manufacturing plants, retail stores, and remote offices.
- In past practice, it was relatively straightforward to calculate network TCO. You totaled your costs in network hardware, software, staff labor, contractor labor, service contracts, power consumption, floor space, and so on, and then came up with numbers for operating expenses and asset capitalizations.
- If a company determines strategically to decentralize manufacturing and distribution but is also wary of adding headcount, it's going to seek out edge computing and network automation.
- Companies will continue to move more IT to the cloud because they like the feeling of “pay per use.” Accordingly, more networks are likely to evolve into hybrid combinations of both internal and cloud-based resources.
- Network managers annually struggle to upgrade networks within the budgetary dollars they’re allotted—and many dread the TCO justification and payback discussions for network infrastructure investments that others fail to see value in.
Welcome to Next Up in Network Computing!
You already know that every day at Network Computing brings the how and why behind next-gen networks, data centers, storage systems, communications, and cloud architecture.
That means original reporting from our team of journalists and unique commentary you won’t see anywhere else! But in case you missed them, here are some of our other must-read favorites from this week:
Cisco is Aging and Evolving
Key Points:
- Cisco turns 40 this month and is celebrating by doing what Cisco has always done: renewing its commitment to innovation, inclusion, and sustainability.
- As part of its 40th anniversary activities, Cisco launched a new ambition: over the next decade, Cisco intends to engage, support, and invest in 40 global communities. Cisco has historically been active in many communities around the globe.
- In a briefing with analysts,
Brian Tippens
, SVP and Chief Social Impact and Inclusion Officer told us, “We could continue to scale our impact through individuals but chose to focus on communities. We’ve been thinking more about building resilience in communities and the impact we could have if we showed up in force to drive meaningful change.”
- Cisco’s recent acquisition of
Splunk
, a software company that analyzes and visualizes machine-generated data, offers an opportunity to amplify these efforts further. Splunk’s expertise in data solutions aligns with Cisco’s vision of a more connected world. The companies plan to tackle challenges such as bridging the digital divide, advancing sustainable practices, and promoting inclusion.
Unraveling the Potential of Wi-Fi 7 for Enterprises
Key Points:
- Wi-Fi 7 has drawn great attention this past year with the creation of a product certification program from the Wi-Fi Alliance, the launch of access points and routers by top equipment vendors, and their ability to use frequencies in the wide-opened 6GHz band.
- The Wi-Fi standard got a boost in the fall from
苹果
, which announced its latest device, the iPhone 16, comes equipped with support for Wi-Fi 7. It is also compatible with its closest predecessor, Wi-Fi 6E, which has been widely implemented by entertainment venues such as sports and concert stadiums across the U.S.
- “Access to the 6 GHz band is going to be a game changer for enterprises adopting Wi-Fi 7,” said
Sian Morgan, ing., CPA
, Research Director at
Dell'Oro Group
, a telecom market research and analysis firm. “However, organizations should be aware that the new Wi-Fi 7 APs are power hungry. To take full advantage of all the new functionality, a refresh to higher power switches may be in order.”
- Evaluating any technology for enterprise use can be a daunting task, especially emerging options such as the latest Wi-Fi standard. The features (speed, versatility, and less congestion) have been widely reported. However, the road to implementation contains challenges that should be addressed for an optimal rollout.
Ready to Challenge Your Data Protection Vendor?
Key Points:
- When the Irish Health Care System (HSE)’s data was ransom attacked, ?80% of their data became corrupted and unusable. In July, the city of Columbus experienced a ransomware attack that disrupted various municipal services, and months later, it is still working towards recovery.
- Few organizations have been this transparent following a ransomware attack, but HSE and Columbus are far from alone. Following ransomware attacks, organizations rely on their data protection solution to recover and restore business operations as quickly as possible.
- Data protection vendors often rely on high-level analysis to detect unusual activity in backups or snapshots. This includes threshold analysis, identifying unusual file changes, or detecting changes in compression rates that may suggest ransomware encryption.
- Organizations need to demand AI data integrity engines that can accurately detect corruption due to cyberattacks, detailed forensic insights to minimize data loss, regular validation of data at rest to ensure reliability, and continuously updated AI to keep up with evolving ransomware variants.
These Top 5 IT Trends are Set to Revolutionize Innovation in 2025
Key Points:
- The fundamentals of IT – meaning the core assumptions and goals behind processes like software development and administration – haven’t changed significantly in decades. But IT techniques are evolving rapidly. So are the business challenges and priorities that IT departments must address.
- The concept of zero trust – a security model in which no user, application, or service is granted access to IT resources by default – is not exactly new. However, even in organizations that have adopted zero trust for some of their authentication processes, zero trust has often not become fully embedded across all authentication models.
- Knowing exactly where your data is stored, a practice known as data sovereignty, has long been important for some businesses – especially as a means of complying with data privacy or security regulations that apply to certain regions or geopolitical jurisdictions.
- Here’s a look at five key IT trends that I expect to predominate in the coming year as IT departments respond to novel challenges while also seeking to unlock new efficiencies.
Commentary of the Week
Key Points:
- Today, 93% of organizations deploy and rely on various application delivery services to ensure the scale, performance, and availability of applications and APIs. Yet the services available today were not built for AI applications or the AI factories that fuel them.?
- When we look at AI applications and the factories full of inferencing servers that fuel them, we discover that efficient traffic steering (load balancing, request distribution, whatever you want to call it) and low latency are essential characteristics of successful AI applications.
- There are a lot of reasons organizations struggle with implementing efficient traffic steering policies, not the least of which is a shared understanding of the most common causes of delivery and performance problems—and a set of best practices to solve for them.
- Well, today we’re going to highlight (expose?) some of the most common reasons—and ways to address them. Ready?
Latest Major Tech Layoff Announcements
Original Story by Jessica C. Davis, Updated by Brandon Taylor
Key Points:
- As COVID drove everyone online, tech companies hired like crazy. Now we are hitting the COVID tech bust as tech giants shed jobs by the thousands.
- Updated December 20, 2024 with layoff announcements from Refinery29, Yahoo, Foundry and Calendly.
- Check back regularly for updates to InformationWeek's IT job layoffs tracker.
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