Bandwidth Management For The Mobile Generation

Enterprise mobility is gaining momentum by the minute. Recent findings by Nemertes Research reveal that 65% of companies had increased mobile device population in 2013. What is needed to support the mobile device movement is a responsive network that has adequate security and can easily handle the multitude of diverse devices connecting to it.

Another significant factor that is affecting modern network connectivity is the rising popularity of video and mobile based applications. A video spreading virally in a large organization can hog bandwidths and create nightmares for network administrators. To handle this enormous network capacity surge, most data centers resort to adding bandwidth of their WLAN. In 2013, most organizations almost doubled their bandwidth capacity, thanks to mobile driven consumer and productivity applications.

Mobile devices bring in the additional security threats of rogue access points and non-enrolled devices. There are multiple levels of security that are introduced in the systems, starting from mobile device management (MDM) applications that are installed on the devices to the next layer of network based security protection. Most mobile vendors are aware of the security risks that these devices could bring in to an organization’s network. Some of the features provided are device fingerprinting when accessing networks, regular device health checks and safeguards against rogue access points. A smart solution employed by almost 36.8% organizations is to integrate the MDM with the organization’s WLAN network access control. Most organizations are also replacing wired technologies with WiFi networks, as network standards such as 802.11 ac promise to offer greater network capacities.

WAN optimizers are also used by many network administrators. These are essential for traffic that is VDI and mobile based since the traditional TCP protocol is not geared to handle this traffic and slows down the transmission. WAN optimizers use recoding into proprietary protocols so as to eliminate the sluggishness in the network.

Today’s organizations allow end users to fully exploit the features of their tablets and smartphones. In order to keep up with this trend, data center administrators need to upgrade themselves, both in terms of increased bandwidth and increased security. For the best solutions to meet your growing infrastructure demands, do get in touch with the data center experts at Lifeline Data Centers today.

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.