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Archive of posts with category 'industry insights'
Concerns about returning to the office no longer center primarily around COVID-19 exposure, a recent survey from The Conference Board notes, as 43 percent of workers question the wisdom of returning to the office at all. These concerns are particularly acute among Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996), with 55 percent finding the idea of a return to the...
Tags: hiring, saas, cloud, future of work, return to office, baby boomers, gen z, millenials, pandemic, covid, hybrid office, hybrid work, work from home, work from anywhere, remote work, network performance, network monitoring, network management
Here at AppNeta, we’re big fans of podcasts. When we aren’t stopping by some of our favorite shows, we’re constantly tuning into the hottest tech feeds, and always have our own hot takes on the news of the day. Now, we’re sharing these hot takes on our own show, Stories From The Wire: The AppNeta Podcast! To kick things off,...
Tags: Stories From The Wire, podcast, DNS, Fastly, Akamai, network management, network performance monitoring, network performance, internet performance, internet outage, POP, SDN, CDN
The short-term future of work continues to remain foggy, as major tech companies waver on their office return plans in the face of resistance from workers and an inconsistent pandemic recovery. Fortunately for those working in tech, a new survey from Protocol Workplace found that overall, employers and employees are aligned in their workplace attitudes and approach to navigating office...
Tags: end user experience, network performance, network monitoring, network management, enterprise network, enterprise IT, IT jobs, tech jobs, tech workers, technology, tech, home office, hybrid office, wfh, wfa, hybrid work, work from anywhere, work from home, remote work
Businesses are exiting survival mode and diving headlong into growth mode, according to the latest analysis from Gartner, as IT spending ramps up to support a new Work-from-Anywhere reality. Worldwide, IT spending will increase by 9 percent in 2021 to $4.2 trillion as companies double down on digital transformations across the board: From tech initiatives launched to “stay afloat” during...
Tags: Gartner, hybrid office, remote work, hybrid work, work from home, work from anywhere, enterprise IT, IT, SaaS, business, software, WAN, network architecture, network, infrastructure, devices, budgeting, budget, IT
It’s been a long and trying school year for parents and students alike, who are all hopefully in the midst of enjoying a much more conventional summer vacation this year than last. But even with many students returning fully to the classroom this fall, how much of the digital transformation that took place in education during the pandemic will hold...
Tags: home internet, hybrid work, remote working, remote learning, learn from anywhere, work from anywhere, academia, university, college, k 12, school shopping, back to school, network monitoring, network management
Of all the industries embracing long-term remote work, Software & IT companies are the ones offering workers the most flexibility, according to the latest LinkedIn Workforce Confidence Index. Forty-eight percent of Software & IT employers will offer full-time remote options long-term, according to the survey of almost 9,000 professionals in the United States, while 46 percent of Transportation & Logistics...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, hybrid office, hybrid work, remote workforce, remote work, wfh, wfa, work from anywhere, work from home, IT, software
The latest iteration of the Biden Administration’s signature infrastructure plan is now a $1.2 trillion bipartisan bill that allocates $65 billion toward universal high-speed broadband. If passed, the plan calls for state and local investment in new broadband infrastructure as well as auctioning off 5G Spectrum to fund rural broadband expansion. The new bill is scaled back from the administration’s...
Tags: hybrid work, remote work, work from home, work from anywhere, internet, Biden, Biden Administration, congress, senate, bill, suburban, urban, rural broadbnad, expansion, infrastructure, broadband
The pandemic has put fantastic stress on many of the pillars of IT, including VPNs. Long relied upon to provide secure connectivity to remote corporate workers, they were adequate for the needs of 2019, but not necessarily for the mass of people relying on them through the pandemic. A particular point of weakness was the requirement that cloud services had...
Tags: office network, hybrid office, hybrid work, remote work, work from anywhere, work from home, network management, network monitoring, WAN performance, network performance, enterprise IT, enterprise edge, WAN edge, network edge, edge computing, edge
Many businesses were forced to reinvent themselves in response to the pandemic. WeWork, on the other hand, is a business that’s poised to succeed post-pandemic despite it’s attempts at reinvention. In April and May 2021, the company recorded its highest net desk sales (ie. new licenses versus cancellations) since September 2019, when WeWork was originally poised to launch a blockbuster...
Tags: network visibility, network performance monitoring, network management, remote network, remote workforce, remote monitoring, enterprise network, enterprise IT, future of work, coworking, flex schedule, flex office, work from home, work from anywhere, remote work, hybrid work, hybrid office, shared office, wework
SD-WAN has had a mixed reception over the years. A variety of factors have put this technology on a rockier market trajectory than some had expected. Now, with the rush to support Work- from Anywhere (WFA), it’s worthwhile to look at the strengths and weaknesses of SD-WAN and the role of end-to-end monitoring in making SD-WAN deployments better. SD-WAN Rising...
Tags: hybrid cloud, hybrid office, hybrid work, remote work, work from anywhere, work from home, enterprise cloud, enterprise IT, enterprise network, wide area network, software defined networking, WAN, SD WAN
IT organizations that focus on delivering exceptional customer experience (CX) enjoy greater success in nearly all key metrics than those that don’t, a recent Rackspace report finds. Not only is brand awareness 1.6x higher for these companies, but employee satisfaction jumps by 1.5x and customer retention doubles. The trouble is, becoming a CX-focused IT organization doesn’t happen overnight (or even...
Tags: customer retention, IT priorities, call center, contact center, UX, user experience, CX, customer support, customer experience, enterprise network, cloud, enterprise IT, network performance monitoring, network management, network monitoring
Facebook just announced that all 60,000 of the company’s full-time employees are now eligible for permanent work from home privileges, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg tells workers that he himself will be taking advantage of the policy to work remotely about half the time going forward. “I’ve found that working remotely has given me more space for long-term thinking and helped...
Tags: airbnb, staycation, digital nomad, distributed enterprise, decentralized enterprise, decentralization, distributed workforce, teleworking, flexible work, hybrid work, wfh, wfa, work from anywhere, work from home, facebook
Reddit, Spotify, Hulu, Stripe, the New York Times, and countless other online properties went dark with a 503 error for almost an hour this week, showing how delicate the Internet’s physical infrastructure can really be. The error brought down everything from streamers to fintech to news outlets, with Fastly, the Content Delivery Network (CDN) provider, calling the issue a “global...
Tags: hybrid office, hybrid cloud, enterprise IT, enterprise WAN, Internet performance, network management, network performance monitoring, network performance, data center, content delivery network, POP, SSD, CDN, cloud, Internet, network, Fastly, outage, error
When workers say they want flexibility, they mean it, as 39 percent of adults polled by Bloomberg say they would quit if their employer took away remote work privileges. Among millennials and Gen Z (aka the youngest cohorts of the current adult workforce), 49 percent would leave their job if their employer backtracked on worker flexibility, as many remote teams...
Tags: network management, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, hr, millenial, gen z, enterprise cloud, enterprise IT, enterprise network, hybrid cloud, hybrid work, hybrid office, home office, remote office, remote workforce, remote work, work from anywhere, wfa, work from home, wfh
Over the course of the pandemic, network capacity became a hot commodity, as homebound workers and students were forced to run high-throughput functions over “best-effort” links, delivering speeds that were well below what was normal at the office or at school. All of this was on top of regular streaming and social media access, which itself only accelerated during lockdown,...
Tags: infrastructure, broadband, Sidewalks, Tile, RIN, AWS, echo, hybrid office, hybrid work, work from anywhere, work from home, remote workforce, remote work, enterprise IT, enterprise WAN, residential internet, isp, internet, wifi, Amazon sidewalks, Amazon, network management, network monitoring
Teleworking (aka remote work, work-from-home, work-from-anywhere or any other flavor of working that shrugs daily visits to the corporate office) isn’t a new concept, but it’s perhaps never been more discussed. As entire workforces suddenly went remote last year in response to the pandemic, businesses that had never even considered teleworking solutions prior to 2020 were now looking to deploy...
Tags: hybrid office, hybrid work, WFH, WFA, work from anywhere, work from home, remote workforce, remote work, teleworking
Few platforms saw their profile rise as high as Microsoft Teams over the past 18 months, as the solution became the enterprise go-to for keeping newly-homebound workforces connected during the pandemic. As of Microsoft’s most recent earnings call, Teams now claims 145 million daily active users, nearly double the users counted almost a year ago, and the 32 million daily...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network management, network monitoring, enterprise network, cloud computing, Azure, enterprise cloud, cloud, enterprise IT, IT, network operations, netops, devops, developers, 365, Build 2021, Build, Office 365, Outlook, Teams, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft
While Airbnb was initially built around facilitating time away from work, the pandemic has turned our sense of vacation on its head, with many folks taking advantage of their newfound work-from-anywhere schedules to do just that. Almost a quarter of all bookings from January through March of 2021 on Airbnb were for 28-plus day stays, according to a recent report...
Tags: bnb, travel, future of work, remote management, network management, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, enterprise cloud, enterprise network, enterprise IT, nomad, work travel, home office, remote office, hybrid office, hybrid work, remote workforce, remote work, wfa, wfh, work from home, work from anywhere, remote work, airbnb
Only 28 percent of enterprises are fully realizing the benefits of their cloud investments due to a lack of coordination between traditional network operations teams and separate units steering cloud migration. This is according to the recent findings from EMA and Bluecat’s “A House Divided” report, which found that 72 percent of enterprises see room for improvement in their cloud...
Tags: cloud adoption, cloud migration, network transformation, digital transformation, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, enterprise cloud, enterprise network, enterprise IT, IT, network operations, network management, scalability, SaaS, software, on prem, on premises, hybrid office, hybrid cloud, cloud monitoring, cloud management, cloud computing
While the popular narrative around enterprise software has long been centered on the ascension of SaaS, on-premises software demand continues to be strong with 92 percent of companies reporting their on-premise software sales are growing. According to the findings of a new Dimensional Research report from Replicated, demand for on-premises software is equally as strong as cloud solutions, as many...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network management, network performance, colocoation, hybrid cloud, enterprise cloud, enterprise data center, cloud visibility, cloud transformation, cloud computing, cloud, SaaS, software, data center, on premises
Businesses are continuing their march towards a hybrid cloud future, as the 2021 AFCOM Data Center Report found that on-premises enterprise data center construction is shrinking for the foreseeable future as more businesses turn to cloud and colocation services. According to the report, 80 percent of IT leaders said their enterprise is not building any new on-premises data centers today,...
Tags: repatriating, on premise, digital transformation, colocation, cloud transformation, hybrid cloud, cloud, data center monitoring, network monitoring, network management, data center management, data center
The role of IT has expanded well beyond the traditional boundaries of the help desk, according to the latest 2021 State of the CIO report, as IT leaders spent 47 percent of their focus this past year helping their team drive wide-ranging “Transformational” efforts. These transformational activities included “aligning IT initiatives with business goals” (40 percent of Transformational focus), “implementing...
Tags: future of IT, future of work, hybrid work, remote work, work from anywhere, work from home, digital transformation, enterprise transformation, network transformation, cloud transformation, transformation, CTO, CIO, IT, enterprise IT
Google is getting more specific about their long-term remote work prospects this week as CEO Sundar Pichai announced in a company-wide memo that 60 percent of Google employees will practice a three day in-office work week going forward. As for the full spread of Google’s 140,000 global employees? Twenty percent are expected to work from home permanently post-pandemic, while the...
Tags: scalability, flexibility, remote workforce, hybrid work, remote work, wfh, wfa, work from anywhere, work from home, googlers, google, network performance monitoring, network performance, network monitoring, network management
As AppNeta embarks on its second decade innovating network performance monitoring, our trophy shelf continues to grow with our business, as we’re the proud winners of two 2021 Stevies from the American Business Awards—Silver for Achievement in Product Innovation and Bronze for Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year (up to 2,500 employees). This is our second year in a...
Tags: wins, award, enterprise IT, enterprise cloud, enterprise network, network management, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, remote monitoring, cloud transformation, cloud computing, hybrid cloud, hybrid office, hybrid work, work from anywhere, work from home, remote work, distributed enterprise, enterprise decentralization, digital transformation, American Business Awards, ABAs, Stevies
The United States population grew by 7.4 percent during the 2010s to 331,449,281, according to the latest Census Bureau figures, as historically dense population centers lost growth momentum and rural areas experienced big gains. Broken down into what these latest figures mean for congressional representation, California, Illinois, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia all lost a seat in...
Tags: hybrid office, hybrid work, remote work, work from home, work from anywhere, enterprise network, enterprise IT, sprawl, broadband access, population, suburban, urban flight, deurbanization, decentralization, broadband, rural, urban, census, network performance monitoring, network management
More than three quarters of business leaders surveyed by Deloitte credited their organizations’ digital capabilities for helping them survive (if not thrive) during the pandemic, a new report finds. To that end, more than two thirds of respondents see businesses that fail to digitize and transform across departments within the next five years as “doomed,” according to Deloitte’s annual Digital...
Tags: observability, visibility, post pandemic, pandemic, IT, cloud migration, cloud transformation, cloud computing, cloud, edge, enterprise network, enterprise cloud, enterprise IT, enterprise transformation, digital transformation, gartner, deloitte, work from home, work from anywhere, network management, network performance monitoring
As enterprises continue the march toward a Work From Anywhere future, VMware is the latest IT solutions provider to debut a new suite of tools aimed squarely at managing a distributed workforce. Called “Anywhere Workspace,” the new offering combines VMware’s Workspace One platform with endpoint security from VMware’s Carbon Black and SASE product lines. “Even though each of these three...
Tags: distributed enterprise, decentralization, hybrid cloud, hybrid work, hybrid office, anywhere operations, anywhere workspace, work from anywhere, work from home, remote workforce, remote work, network management, WAN, network security, security, SASE, cloud computing, cloud, VMware
Microsoft made a massive investment into their healthcare cloud strategy this week by purchasing software developer Nuance Communications for $19.7 billion. The deal, which marks Microsoft’s biggest acquisition since purchasing LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016, is a logical next step for the company, as they’ve worked hard to define their vertical-specific cloud offerings over the past year. At the...
Tags: artificial intelligence, AIOps, AI, Nuance, digital transformation, healthcare transformation, digital healthcare, virtual care, healthcare cloud, telehealth, healthcare, Azure, Microsoft Cloud, Microsoft, network management, network performance monitoring, network monitoring
IT spending is forecast to hit $4.1 trillion in 2021—an 8.4 percent jump from last year— as digital initiatives and transformations outside of the traditional realm of IT are fueling tech spending across organizations, according to the latest forecast from Gartner. Spending on devices like laptops, desktops, tablets, and mobile phones will jump 14 percent this year over 2020 levels,...
Tags: work from home, remote workforce, remote work, work from anywhere, network monitoring, enterprise technology, technology, software, hardware, it spending, it budget, enterprise IT, network performance monitoring, network management
As the pandemic wore on last year and changed how we approach even the most basic day-to-day tasks, non-emergency healthcare became a big question mark for thousands of people. This was an especially fraught situation for those who previously relied on regular in-person doctor visits for their well being, leading many to make the false choice between risking COVID-19 exposure...
Tags: healthcare networks, healthcare IT, network performance monitoring, network performance, work from home, work from anywhere, remote work, telemedicine, healthcare, virtual healthcare, remote healthcare, telehealth
With the majority of Americans hoping to work from home in some capacity after the pandemic, the Biden Administration is dedicating $100 billion toward expanding broadband access in an attempt to give every citizen access to performant Internet. A recent report from the Federal Communications Commission estimated that as of December 2019 (ie. just before pandemic restrictions took hold), roughly...
Tags: network management, network performance monitoring, enterprise IT, enterprise, decentralization, network decentralization, enterprise network, work from anywhere, future of work, work from home, remote work, bill, infrastructure, Biden Administration, Biden, providers, ISP, internet, broadband
As vaccine distribution increases and enterprises plan for a post-covid future, major tech companies are leading the way in establishing the path back to the office, albeit on an incremental and heavily hybrid basis. Microsoft and Uber reopened their respective headquarters on March 29, with the ladder moving up their previous back-to-office schedule from September 13. While Uber may be...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network management, facebook, uber, microsoft, headquarters, return to office, hybrid work, remote work, work from home, work from anywhere, future of work, network management
Earlier this month, Microsoft announced it would launch its own Financial Services Cloud, joining IBM, who announced their finance cloud a year earlier, in an attempt to meaningfully bring cloud transformation to an industry that’s historically been averse to change. Retail banking has already been a fruitful frontier for cloud computing and tech disruption, what with Venmo and Zelle leaving...
Tags: network management, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, enterprise transformation, digital transformation, cloud migration, cloud, cloud transformation, cloud computing, banking, corporate banking, finance cloud, financial services, finance
We work with our customers everyday to provide proactive insight on the key apps supporting the business and best practices for addressing issues when they arise. Up this week is a great example of how having a continuous baseline of your cloud applications will help you take action before your users are impacted. On March 15th, saw an issue with...
Tags: network management, enterprise IT, cloud transformation, cloud, cloud computing, Active Directory, Azure outage, Azure, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft, MTTR, MTTI, IT troubleshooting, network performance monitoring
According to the 2020 IT Skills and Salary Report from Global Knowledge, 67 percent of IT decision makers polled believe an IT skills gap cost them between three and nine hours of productivity per IT employee each week. Over the course of 2020, that could add up to 520 productivity hours lost per each IT team member, or roughly $29,000...
Tags: network performance monitoring, enterprise network, enterprise IT, network performance tools, network performance solutions, IT skills, IT help desk, help desk, network performance management, network monitoring, network management, IT executive, IT decision makers, IT, technology, information, gap, skills, IT, IT skills gap
With knowledge workers across the globe closing in on a year of work from home (WFH), Comcast, which has the largest user footprint among U.S.-based ISPs, has announced that Internet traffic soared across their network during of the pandemic. Peak downstream traffic increased approximately 38 percent over previous-year levels in March 2020 alone, while peak upstream traffic increased approximately 56...
Tags: Internet, network manamgenet, enterprise network, distance learning, remote learning, remote workforce, last mile network, last mile internet, internet capacity, remote work, residential internet, internet service provider, isp, internet, comcast, work from home, work from anywhere, network performance monitoring
While cloud computing has had broad positive (and transformative) implications across industries, every vertical leverages the cloud differently to suit their unique services and offerings. Microsoft is taking another step in giving specific industries their very own vertical-oriented cloud playgrounds with the introduction of three new suites: Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing, and Microsoft Cloud for...
Tags: enterprise cloud, cloud transformation, cloud computing, Office 365, Microsoft 365, Azure, Microsoft Cloud, financial technology, fintech, financial services, finance, nonprofit, retail, healthcare, manufacturing
According to the Accenture Technology Vision 2021 report, leading enterprises are squeezing almost a decade of digital transformation into one- or two-year projects today, with success hinging on a strong network architecture to deliver. All of this comes as enterprises are forced to fundamentally rethink their businesses around a strong digital foundation, with companies that embrace digital transformation today growing...
Tags: wfh, wfa, work from home, work from anywhere, remote workforce, remote work, BYOE, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, cloud computing, big data, network architecture, network infrastructure, enterprise WAN, enterprise IT, accenture, network transformation, cloud transformation, digital transformation
It’s no exaggeration that enterprises are facing a major inflection point, where their entire operational structure is being tested or transformed. Users abruptly went remote en masse last spring, and it remains to be seen how many of the Work From Anywhere skills and habits honed during the pandemic will stick around for the long haul. All of these converging...
Tags: work from home, work from anywhere, wfa, wfh, observability, visibility, application performance insights, network performance insights, network management, network performance monitoring, global enterprises, enterprise alliance, enterprise partners, enterprise network, enterprise IT, enterprise transformation, digital transformation, Cloud transformation, Cloud, Global Alliances
Opinions on fintech have become a political hot button after activist investors recently used apps like Robinhood to drive GameStop stocks up 4000 percent. But regardless of where you stand on the virtues of the stock market, fintech solutions are everywhere, helping people manage their budgets (Truebill, Mint), estimate the value of property (Zillow, Rentberry) or just pay their friends...
Tags: banking applications, banking app, banking cloud, banking, cloud transformation, cloud computing, finance cloud, finance SaaS, SaaS, asset apps, budget apps, finance apps, proptech, property technology, property tech, financial technology, fintech
Bulletins and Milestones are the latest line-of-business tools added to Microsoft Teams’ Power Apps suite, giving users the ability to better communicate and collaborate via Microsoft’s Dataverse cloud service. Both apps function pretty much as their names suggest, with Bulletin’s giving team leaders the ability to broadcast announcements either company-wide or per department, while Milestones helps users keep track of...
Tags: Dataverse, Power Apps, network management, network performance monitoring, network performance, collaboration apps, collaboration tools, enterprise collaboration, collaboration, work from anywhere, work from home, Azure, Microsoft Cloud, Microsoft Apps, Teams Apps, UCaaS, Microsoft Teams Monitoring, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft
According to Salesforce, “the 9-to-5 workday is dead,” as the company’s chief people officer Brent Hyder announced that Salesforce will offer employees three styles of work once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted; flex, fully remote, and office-based. Flex, which Salesforce expects the majority of employees to embrace, requires workers only to come to the office one to three days a week...
Tags: application performance, SaaS, enterprise network, enterprise IT, network management, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, WFA, WFH, decentralized network, distributed network, enterprise cloud, salesforce cloud, work from anywhere, work from home, remote work, facebook, microsoft, salesforce
While Microsoft has succeeded in dominating the burgeoning enterprise cloud software market over the past year, AWS continued to reign supreme when it comes to total cloud investments during Q4 2020, with revenues growing 28 percent year-over-year to $12.74 billion. Despite this growth, AWS’s total share of the cloud market slipped slightly from Q4 2019 from 32.4 percent to 31...
Tags: collaboration, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft, UCaaS, SaaS, network architecture, enterprise network, enterprise cloud, cloud migration, cloud computing, Google Cloud, Azure Cloud, AWS cloud, Azure, AWS, network transformation, cloud transformation, cloud adoption
When Salesforce recently scooped up Slack in a partnership deemed “the most strategic combination in the history of software” (according to Slack’s own CEO), other enterprise cloud providers wasted no time in securing their own blockbuster partnerships to merge cloud-based collaboration tools with larger enterprise software suites. The latest comes from SAP, who has expanded their existing partnership with Microsoft...
Tags: scalability, scalable, agility, WFA, WFH, work from anywhere, work from home, enterprise network, enterprise IT, enterprise cloud, enterprise transformation, network transformation, cloud transformation, cloud, UCaaS, Salesforce, Slack, enterprise IT, Teams Monitoring, Azure Cloud, Azure, Microsoft Cloud, SAP Cloud, SAP, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft
The 2020 holiday shopping season was a challenge on nearly every level, from testing the limits on fulfillment and ecommerce infrastructure to forcing brands to rethink what to do with their brick-and-mortar footprint. Despite it all, retailers enjoyed a 8.3 percent jump in sales from 2019 over November-December, besting the National Retail Federation’s (NRF’s) more modest forecast. Total sales climbed...
Tags: physical retail, online retail, ecommerce, online shopping, holiday season, holiday shopping, network transformation, enterprise WAN, network performance monitoring, network performance, retail network, retail fulfillment, digital transformation, retail transformation, retail
Increasing access to broadband connectivity will be among the top priorities for members of the newly appointed White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), who face an aggressive agenda as the Biden Administration works to bridge the United State’s digital divide. Leading this new department is Dr. Eric Lander, the now-former president and founding director of the Broad...
Tags: network management, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, enterprise IT, enterprise networks, Biden, OSTP, white house, enterprise IT, internet access, rural internet, cybersecurity, data security, data protection, digital divide, rural broadband, broadband, enterprise IT
Nearly a year into widespread work-from-home (WFH), the cracks are starting to show at some organizations who may not have primed their workforce (or their networks) for an extended absence from the office. According to research from productivity software company Asana, burnout is now being felt among the vast majority of knowledge workers as teams struggle to define and enforce...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, Microsoft Teams, Teams, cloud computing, cloud, video, voice, VoIP, collaboration, UCaaS, Zoom, remote workers, remote workforce, remote work, hybrid office, wfa, work from anywhere, wfh, work from home, burnout, burn out
As recent events have made extremely clear, enterprise IT teams need better insight into network activity to understand the impact of bad actors. But a recent poll of business leaders found that roughly a quarter of all companies have low (if any) internal or external network visibility. The research from Positive Technologies found that 24 percent of companies rated their...
Tags: IIoT, iot, industry 4.0, network operations, IT, visibility, observability, external network, internal network, network visibility, enterprise IT, enterprise network IT, enterprise network, network performance monitoring, network management, network monitoring
As pretty much everyone has heard by now, SolarWinds was the target of a sophisticated Supply Chain Attack. We want to assure our customers that AppNeta does not use Solarwinds software internally or in support of the AppNeta Performance Manager. Unfortunately, there are over 18,000 companies who were using Orion and now are tasked with finding and fixing this challenging...
Tags: usage analysis, usage, network analysis, network security, network management, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, application monitoring, cybersecurity, cyber attack, Malware, SolarWinds
As part of the $900 billion coronavirus relief deal that was struck by Congress on Sunday, $7 billion was allocated to establishing greater broadband internet access across the United States, helping bridge connectivity gaps that have become glaring as lockdowns kept families and workers home throughout 2020. Part of the relief includes $3.2 billion for a $50-per-month emergency broadband benefit...
Tags: work from anywhere, work from home, remote workforce, remote workers, remote work, telehealth, comcast, residential ISP, residential internet, internet connectivity, broadband connectivity, broadband internet, broadband, congress, relief package, relief, stimulus
Enterprises by and large fell into two buckets when it came to how they’re network operations teams responded to the massive disruption posed by the pandemic. Some organizations resisted new wide-scale cloud adoption, fearing that a big network transformation would be more disruptive than helpful with all the areas of the business being impacted at once by global events. Others,...
Tags: budget, hybrid cloud, multicloud, enterprise cloud, cloud migration, cloud computing, cloud adoption, cloud transformation, network transformation, digital transformation, enterprise networks, enterprise IT, IT budgets, visibility, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, network management
Microsoft Teams has seen it’s popularity explode over the past year, establishing it’s position atop the highly competitive market for enterprise communication software in a time when remote collaboration has become essential. With integration and storage capabilities that, until recently, were unrivaled, it only makes sense that Teams would continue to see it’s adoption rise over the course of 2020....
Tags: network performance monitoring and diagnostics, network management, end user experience, end user experience monitoring, network performance monitoring, enterprise network monitoring, enterprise network, enterprise IT, software as a service, saas, cloud computing, cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams Monitoring, Microsoft Teams Management, UCaaS, voice, video, collaboration, office 365
The Business Intelligence Group (BIG) has recognized AppNeta as one of the 38 winners of the 2020 Stratus Awards for Cloud Computing, cementing our status as a leader in the cloud and a trusted partner for businesses during challenging times. This latest recognition is a true testament to our solution’s ability to scale and respond to the changing conditions of...
Tags: network performance monitoring and diagnostics, network management, end user experience, end user experience monitoring, network performance monitoring, enterprise network monitoring, enterprise network, enterprise IT, software as a service, saas, cloud computing, cloud, 2020 Stratus Awards, 2020 Awards, BIG Stratus Awards
According to Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, “the most strategic combination in the history of software” took place this week as Salesforce officially acquired Slack in an all-stock deal valued at $27.7 billion. The acquisition sets up a titanic battle between Salesforce and Microsoft, as Slack is considered the primary competitor to Microsoft’s Teams collaboration platform, which has exploded in popularity...
Tags: network management, network performance monitoring, enterprise network, enterprise IT, enterprise collaboration, collaboration software, UCaaS, SaaS, enterprise software, collaboration tools, voice, video & collaboration, voice & video, voice, cloud computing, cloud, merger, Customer 360, Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Teams, Microsoft, Salesforce, Slack
With Americans instructed to scale back their holiday gatherings this year, they seem to be going in the opposite direction when it comes to holiday shopping, smashing 2019’s Black Friday record by spending an estimated $9 billion on U.S. retail sites last week. This marks a 22 percent jump over the $7.4 billion record set last year, according to Adobe...
Tags: retail fulfillment, retail network, retail network performance, network performance, enterprise IT, enterprise network, online retail, retail, online store, ecommerce, online shopping, holiday shopping, thanksgiving, cyber monday, black friday, network performance monitoring
For many folks, picking up prescriptions or visiting the pharmacy goes hand-in-hand with a trip to the grocery store, an arena that Amazon has already been disrupting through their pre-pandemic purchase of Whole Foods and the post-pandemic surge in online shopping. By this logic, it only makes sense that Amazon is looking to take their increasingly brick-and-mortar wary grocery customers...
Tags: network management, network performance monitoring, network performance, healthcare IT, healthcare network, digital transformation, healthcare transformation, virtual pharmacy, telemedicine, telehealth, virtual healthcare, healthcare, Amazon pharmacy, Amazon, pharmacy
With the pandemic unexpectedly transforming Zoom from a passive business tool to perhaps the defining brand of our socially-distanced times, the tech giant is looking to “give back” a bit this holiday season by removing 40-minute meeting limits over the Thanksgiving holiday. On a non-holiday, free meetings on Zoom are limited to 40 minutes, pushing users to basically re-start their...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network performance, call tips, zoom tips, tips, SaaS, zoom calls, video chat, video conferencing, Thanksgiving, UCaaS, Microsoft Teams, Zoom
When Gartner first introduced the concept of “secure access service edge” (SASE, pronounced sassy) into the enterprise IT lexicon back in August 2019, they had estimated that “by 2024, at least 40 percent of enterprises will have explicit [SASE] strategies,” up from less than 1 percent in 2018. Flash forward to today, and not even Gartner could’ve predicted the smorgasbord...
Tags: DIA, enterprise cloud, cloud computing, enterprise IT, network performance monitoring, network management, network monitoring, CASB, MPLS, VPN, firewall, security, edge computing, edge, secure access software edge, SD WAN, SaaS, SASE, enterprise IT
When it comes to understanding how users actually leverage their SaaS tools, 97 percent of IT executives admit that they lack complete visibility, largely a side-effect of the fact that most enterprise IT teams are taking a reactive approach to collecting user data. What’s most jarring about these insights from the recently published 2020 The State of SaaS Management report...
Tags: SaaS sprawl, SaaS management, collaboration tools, CTO, CIO, enterprise tech, enterprise IT, enterprise, Microsoft Teams, Teams, UCaaS, SaaS
Of all the rapid transformations taking place across industries this past year, retail’s almost total migration to the digital realm in 2020 was probably the easiest to anticipate. What continues to surprise, however, is how creatively retailers are incorporating their brands and products into other rapidly evolving (and digital) commercial arenas. Shopify, for instance, recently announced a major partnership with...
Tags: delivery, rapid transformation, enterprise network, enterprise WAN, enterprise IT, Gen Z, Postmates, TikTok, Shopify, digital transformation, retail delivery, retail fulfillment, online retail, retail transformation, retail, enterprise IT
To pin the fast and furious shift in consumer attitudes over the past year on a single crisis would be impossible, as social, economic, environmental and public health issues all converged over the course of 2020 to throw every business’ best laid plans out the window. To try to measure the impact of these simultaneous changes on consumer behavior, Salesforce...
Tags: cloud computing, cloud, digital channels, digital transformation, consumer tastes, consumer trends, salesforce, network management, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, enterprise IT
Pandemic restrictions have pushed workers in practically every role out of their comfort zone, forcing them to log onto work from the home environments that used to be their “escape” from the 9-to-5. But as the walls between the office and home have blurred, so too have the hours of work, as many employees—specifically those working at major tech companies—are...
Tags: IT efficiency, remote workforce, remote worker, remote work, Silicon Valley, Facebook, Google, network management, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, enterprise WAN, work from home, wfh, cloud computing, enterprise IT
Add one more “transformation” to the growing list of changes that businesses can credit to COVID-19: A fresh new class of tech buzzwords for 2021. “Plasticity” was one of the many flex-themed buzzwords being played out in real-time during this week’s virtual Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo. The company outlined its Top Strategic Technology Trends for CIOs and CTOs during the event,...
Tags: buzzwords, digital transformation, Gartner, distributed cloud, anywhere operations, hybrid office, hybrid cloud, WFH, work from home, enterprise IT, network performance monitoring
There’s a lot to like and gripe about the new iPhone 12, but the truly revolutionary news regarding Apple’s latest major product launch has more to do with when and how new phones are set to reach customers. While Apple has traditionally shipped direct-to-customer via their network of regional warehouses (if not directly from China), the company is now the...
Tags: amazon prime, amazon, apple store, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, enterprise WAN, enterprise IT, iPhone 12, Apple iPhone, Apple
Residential Internet access has never been a hotter commodity, as everyone from network engineers to their first graders are sharing at-home WiFi and pushing the limits on residential upload and download needs over the course of the pandemic. As a result, ISPs like Comcast are exploring ways to deliver enterprise-caliber Internet speeds out to residences without having to undergo costly...
Tags: comcast internet, direct internet connectivity, dia, direct to internet, internet, remote worker, remote workforce, remote work, wfh, WiFi, internet service provider, residential isp, isp, comcast, cloud computing, network performance monitoring, enterprise IT
While October may seem like an early start to the holiday shopping season, timing is hardly the most unusual thing about this year’s festivities, as the global pandemic effectively shelves the traditional “Black Friday” boon for brick-and-mortar retailers in favor of earlier digital flash sales. The combination of Amazon’s early Prime Day event along with an increase in early online...
Tags: network visibility, network management, network performance, network performance monitoring, enterprise IT, enterprise network, retail IT, retail network, retailers, retail, online retail, digital commerce, ecommerce, online shopping, holiday shopping
To say we’re living in unprecedented times would be an understatement. But researchers at the London School of Economics (LSE) have pulled out the data to officially understand how business leaders are navigating the current “disruption” to the way we work (namely, pandemic-related decentralization) and the role of digital technologies in providing short- and long-term solutions. When comparing the COVID-19...
Tags: network management, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, enterprise WAN, enterprise network, remote workforce, remote work, quarantine, covid 19, pandemic, digital divide, digital transformation, enterprise IT
Google is among the largest and earliest enterprise advocates for remote work, having published a Distributed Work Playbook almost a year before the pandemic kept most of the U.S. workforce out of the office. Despite predicting a more decentralized future, however, even Google didn’t anticipate just how quickly the past year’s events would force the enterprise community to adopt a...
Tags: network management, network performance monitoring, hybrid work, hybrid office, distributed work, headquarters, remote working, branch location, branch office, remote office, remote workforce, remote work, wfh, work from home, Google
Despite competing in a market that has never been hotter, Microsoft Teams has never been more popular. But with Slack and Zoom planning big plays for a larger share of the market for enterprise unified communications as a service (UCaaS), Microsoft unveiled a mile-long list of upgrades to Teams that they hope will maintain its status as the go-to collaboration...
Tags: collaboration tools, team collaboration, collaboration, unified communications, UCaaS, UC, Google Cloud, Google, O365, office 365, microsoft cloud, microsoft teams, microsoft, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, enterprise IT
Two giants of the enterprise cloud computing space made waves this week as Microsoft and Google each announced expansions to their respective Azure and Cloud platforms that are aimed squarely at fostering increased business flexibility and multi-cloud networking. During the launch at Microsoft Ignite, the company’s flagship annual developer’s conference, a greatly enhanced version of Azure was unveiled that expands...
Tags: Google Cloud, Google, Microsoft Cloud, Microsoft, Azure, data center monitoring, data center cloud, data center, work from home, WFH, edge computing, edge cloud, hybrid cloud, multi cloud, cloud computing, cloud, network management, network monitoring, network performance monitoring
During Apple’s most recent Time Flies event, rather than unveiling a new series of iPhones (as many had predicted), the tech giant instead announced a suite of service bundles that could cement Apple’s popularity (and ubiquity) for years to come. Called Apple One, the service bundles are designed to get users who already leverage one or more of the company’s...
Tags: Office 365, Microsoft AWS, APM, NPMD, NPM, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, application performance monitoring, application monitoring, applications, apps, apple as a service, software as a service, saas, apple one, apple
While opinions surrounding the benefits of remote work may differ among enterprise leaders, top researchers in the healthcare space have identified key areas of long-term value from remote treatment that they predict will positively impact both patients and providers if adopted permanently. Siemens Healthineers found that while many of their healthcare provider customers felt strained adapting their services at the...
Tags: distributed network, decentralized IT, network performance monitoring, Siemens, urban healthcare, rural healthcare, network performance, network monitoring, telemedicine, telehealth, remote workforce, remote work, healthcare
When the world stayed home this past spring and summer, everyone from CEOs to first graders turned to Zoom to stay connected. As a result, “Zoom” has graduated to verb-status, supplanting “hop on a video call” in much the same way we tend to “Google” topics regardless of the search engine. But what has made Zoom the global default for...
Tags: SaaS, UCaaS, unified communications, collaboration, voip, video chat, voice and video, video conference, video call, zoom
With families across the Globe stuck inside this past summer and spring, streaming services have risen to the occasion in providing much-needed distractions from our increasingly confined day-to-day lives. King among the streamers is Netflix, who has maintained a lead in the increasingly competitive streaming market even as heavyweights like Disney+ and HBO Max have come online, offering massive libraries...
Tags: remote workforce, remote workers, network performance monitoring, network management, network monitoring, home office, remote office, remote work, WFH, work from home, wall street journal, streaming services, streaming, netflix, enterprise IT
With folks across the globe logging onto work and school from home – and streaming a lot of Netflix when they aren’t – network capacity has never been a hotter commodity. As a result, people are hungry for higher-than-ever Internet speeds to stay connected in a work-from-home (WFH) world, and researchers at University College of London (UCL) have set a...
Tags: network management, network performance monitoring, network capacity, network speeds, network performance, enterprise network, enterprise IT, netflix, TBPS, terabit, internet speeds, internet
The Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) market is the latest cloud-driven industry to receive a booming growth forecast, with the market size poised to reach a valuation of $24.3 billion by 2026. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.4 percent from 2019, when the market was already assessed at a massive $13.8 billion. This growth reflects similar trends in...
Tags: DEM, digital experience monitoring, WFH, work from home, remote workforce, remote workers, remote work, streaming, web conference, video conference, web chat, web call, video chat, video call, UC, Unified Communications, UCaaS
While Google was among the largest (and earliest) enterprises to extend work-from-home (WFH) into summer 2021 in response to the pandemic, remote work has long been a topic of interest for the tech giant, whose suite of solutions supports remote collaboration in nearly all industries. Almost a year before the global pandemic forced social distancing measures on employers, Google surveyed...
Tags: DEM, digital experience monitoring, WFH, remote workforce, remote worker, work from home, remote office, remote work, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, enterprise network, enterprise WAN, enterprise IT, google
Even if 2020 wasn’t an election year, it’d still be one for the record books, as COVID-19 has disrupted everything from how we work to how we teach our kids. Now, it’s upending how we choose our national leaders. While there’s still lingering controversy about how voting will actually take place come November, the Democrat and Republican parties are following...
Tags: enterprise IT, network management, network performance monitoring, network performance, streaming performance, streaming conference, streaming convention, streaming events, live streaming, streaming, democratic national convention, rnc, dnc
The pandemic has turned popular opinion of the office-centric corporate model on its head. But have recent global events actually doomed the enterprise office forever? According to a string of recent studies, the answer is mixed. For starters, despite many companies scrambling to build a WFH infrastructure on the fly back in the spring, the success of these accelerated transformations...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network monitoring, wfh success, wfh monitoring, wfh, remote workforce, work from home, remote workers, remote office monitoring, headquarters, remote offices, remote office, hub, hub city
The expansion of telehealth services is among the few bright spots of recent world events, as healthcare providers have made it easier for a wider swath of non-emergency medical visits to take place virtually, while in-person treatment has been largely reserved for COVID-19 response. As we discussed recently on the blog, this shift has been a boon for the industry,...
Tags: healthcare networks, healthcare IT, enterprise IT, network management, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, virtual visits, digital transformation, digital healthcare, virtual healthcare, healthcare, telehealth
Enterprise cloud adoption continues its rapid acceleration in 2020 as a new survey from IDG found that cloud investments will account for 32 percent of total IT budgets by 2021. The report, which is compiled of reader respondents from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld and Network World tech buyer audiences, found that cloud spending is up 59 percent from 2018 levels,...
Tags: cloud, cloud, remote workforce, remote worker, remote work, WFH, work from home, end user experience, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, network management, cloud computing, cloud migration, cloud adoption
Google is the latest enterprise to tell employees to get comfortable with work from home (WFH), as the tech giant will extend its current mobile working policy – designed to accommodate social distancing in response to the pandemic – until at least June 2021. While not exactly the “all-in” adoption of WFH in the same sense as tech giant Siemens,...
Tags: WFH monitoring, network performance monitoring, network management, network monitoring, Google, Siemens, mobile workforce, mobile work, mobile working, remote workers, remote work, work from home, wfh
When LogMeIn recently surveyed their 3,700 global employees on where they want to work in a post-COVID-19 world, only 5 percent said they’d be happy returning to the office five days a week. As a result, while the company’s plans to return to the office remain fluid, CEO Bill Wagner anticipates that of the 700 employees who work out of...
Tags: remote office, network performance, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, decentralized network, decentralization, remote workforce, remote work, Boston, SaaS, software, LogMeIn, Siemens, WFH, remote work, work from home
Even businesses that have weathered the pandemic so far with aplomb are being cautious about their long-term investments, as economic conditions remain fluid and uncertainty looms over when workers will start returning to the office in large numbers. As a result, many companies are pulling back their spend on office-centric IT projects and focusing instead on tech solutions that support...
Tags: enterprise IT, enterprise, IT budget, IT, pandemic, COVID 19, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, IT budget, budget
Prior to the global pandemic, SD-WAN was among the leading digital transformation initiatives in the enterprise space, as IT teams deployed this tech to help to connect their increasingly distributed remote office footprint. Months into the global quarantine, however, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the pre-COVID focus on the remote office has shifted markedly to support work-from-home (WFH), which conventional...
Tags: network management, network performance monitoring, remote worker, remote workforce, remote work, work from home, wfh, cloud computing, enterprise IT, enterprise WAN, sd wan
Healthcare workers have been the true heroes of the pandemic to date, as they’ve bravely adapted to a new way of working to ensure the best care possible for their communities during unprecedented times. Now, the healthcare industry as a whole is rapidly transforming beyond how they treat patients in the hospital to better serve people remotely, accelerating telehealth efforts...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, healthcare providers, digital transformation, cloud transformation, healthcare cloud, healthcare transformation, healthcare, cloud computing, telehealth
The impact of the global pandemic has been dramatic for the enterprise space, upending financial forecasts and sending workers across the globe home in accordance with social distancing guidelines. But while the conversation regarding the workforce has largely been centered around ongoing work-from-home (WFH) initiatives, businesses are now emerging from the “rushed” phase of their transformation and into a period...
Tags: network performance, network management, network performance monitoring, SD WAN, enterprise IT, enterprise network, wide area network, WAN, office network, real estate, office, office life, cloud computing, wfh, work from home, remote work
If you’ve felt your organization’s cloud migration accelerating at a faster pace than ever the past few months, you’re not alone. The latest Cloud 2025 report from LogicMonitor shows that in just the past two months, attitudes toward cloud adoption have become almost unanimously positive as enterprise IT teams continue to exceed expectations in transforming their networks for quarantine. The...
Tags: network management solutions, network management, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network transformation, cloud transformation, digital transformation, enterprise IT, enterprise WAN, enterprise cloud, cloud computing, cloud adoption, cloud migration
Virtual call centers have long been at the top of the wishlist for enterprises looking to cut costs through digital transformation, and 2020 is proving to be the year many leading consumer brands see their wishes come true. When enterprises across the Globe were forced to set users up for work-from-home (WFH) in response to the COVID-19 outbreak back in...
Tags: cloud management, network management, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network transformation, digital transformation, cloud transformation, covd 19, cloud adoption, cloud migration, cloud computing, virtual contact center, virtual call center, cloud contact center, cloud call center, contact center, call center
While offices across the globe have been inching closer to reopening in fits and starts over the past few weeks, a new report from Xerox has found that 85 percent of IT and tech decision makers expect they’ll finally be back in the office within the next 18 months. The report found that the biggest pain point for a third...
Tags: office life, Xerox, pandemic, covid 19, tech jobs, IT jobs, enterprise IT, remote workforce, remote workers, remote work, wfh, work from home, cloud computing, cloud
Task management platform Okta recently released the mid-year update to their 2020 @Work Business Report, and the findings tell a familiar story: The recent meteoric rise in cloud and SaaS adoption has been hard to ignore, and is challenging IT to seek out new solutions. As expected, cloud-delivered UCaaS and collaboration applications continue to see unprecedented growth over the past...
Tags: network monitoring, network performance monitoring, network management, work from home, remote work, WFH, enterprise WAN, enterprise IT, enterprise networks, video apps, collaboration apps, collaboration tools, collaboration, UCaaS, zoom, slack, skype, video conferencing, video conference, video call
A survey of 1,283 software engineers, technical leads, and IT decision-makers from across the globe found that 45 percent planned to move the majority of their apps to the cloud in 2020. While 88 percent already rely on cloud infrastructure in some form or another, almost half planned to shift three quarters or more of their workflows into the cloud...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, enterprise WAN, enterprise IT, cloud applications, SaaS, cloud apps, enterprise apps, containerization, containers, hybrid cloud, enterprise cloud, cloud adoption, cloud migration, cloud computing, cloud
Microsoft Build, one of four tentpole developer conferences held annually, kicked off its first-ever completely virtual edition this week with a slew of announcements that confirm the tech giant is betting big on cloud – and not letting COVID-19 slow them down. With Facebook’s F8 conference postponed and Google’s I/O conference cancelled, Microsoft Build is the first major developer gathering...
Tags: network management, enterprise networks, network monitoring, network management, enterprise, enterprise IT, microsoft azure, azure, supercomputing, supercomputer, cloud computing, cloud, facebook, google, apple, microsoft build, microsoft
COVID-19 has been a game-changer across the enterprise space, forcing everyone from the C-Suite to the factory floor to modify their workflows and embrace new tech as part of their day-to-day operations. A new report from Wind River shows that many enterprise executives aren’t viewing these sudden changes as stop-gap measures or short-term fixes before returning to the old way...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, enterprise WAN, enterprise network, enterprise IT, enterprise, container, cloud, network performance monitoring, cloud apps, containerization, containers, cloud adoption, cloud migration, cloud
The 2020 State of the Cloud report from Flexera finds that multicloud deployments remain the enterprise networking strategy du jour this year, even if (or, perhaps specifically because) COVID-19 has thrown previous transformation plans off course. The report found that 93 percent of companies have a strategy to use multiple providers – specifically Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google...
Tags: hybrid cloud, private cloud, public cloud, enterprise cloud, enterprise IT, enterprise WAN, cloud adoption, cloud migration, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, cloud computing, multi cloud, multicloud, cloud
It goes without saying that regardless of the industry you find yourself in, the past few months have changed the way the world does business significantly – probably forever. With corporate offices closing and home offices popping up across the map, individual workers have had to suddenly restructure their day-to-day lives with little preparation, putting a lot of pressure on...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network monitoring, Vancouver, Boston, best software companies to work for, best places to work, Software Companies, The Software Review, TSR, INC best workplaces 2020, INC BWP, best workplaces, best places to work
The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be a huge wake-up call for enterprises that hadn’t prioritized cloud migration prior to global WFH orders, as cloud solutions have become a lifeline in the face of an unprecedented shift in how the world does business. As teams rushed to deploy tools and workflows to hundreds (if not thousands) of locations across a...
Tags: work from home, remote work, WFH, enterprise transformation, network transformation, digital transformation, network monitoring, network management, enterprise IT, enterprise WAN, enterprise network, enterprise, social distancing, quarantine, pandemic, COVID 19, cloud migration services, cloud migration, cloud adoption, cloud computing, clou
The concept of “work-from-home” (WFH) went from a growing trend to an emergency enterprise standard over the past few months, forcing folks to make major adjustments to how they connect with colleagues and accomplish their day-to-day tasks. While many stir-crazy folks are longing for the days when they can return to the office, a lot of companies are finding that...
Tags: video conferencing, UCaaS, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, enterprise network, enterprise WAN, enterprise IT, remote office, telecommuting, remote work, work from home, WFH
While just a few months ago Zoom was primarily only familiar within the corporate and tech sphere, the company is now ubiquitous in every facet of our newly-remote daily lives; whether we’re using it to say hi to coworkers, or logging on to host a weekly trivia night with friends or family. Another indicator of Zoom’s newfound popularity? The startup...
Tags: slack, video messaging, unified communications, UCaaS, video conferencing, application developer, application, developer, app developers, developers, apps, apple, facebook, zoom, video conferencing
It’s safe to say that many 2020 enterprise networking priorities have been upended as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. But once the dust settles on the impromptu, quarantine-motivated digital transformations enterprise IT recently undertook, teams will need to reexamine many of the larger-scale IT projects that were on their plate before global events took the wheel. Network World’s recently...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, enterprise network, enterprise IT, edge computing, edge, wan, sd wan, network world
Social distancing guidelines have made UCaaS tools more than just business-critical solutions, as it seems like every parent and grandparent with WiFi access has been hopping on Zoom and other video conferencing apps to bridge the gap between friends and family in isolation. This has put unprecedented pressure on unified communication providers, whose products demand a higher share of network...
Tags: WAH, WFH, work remote, work from home, remote office, remote work, cloud computing, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, Citrix WebEx, WebEx, Zoom, Teams, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft, UCaaS, UC, unified communications, video calls, video conferencing
It goes without saying that there have been plenty of events over the past few weeks that many people never expected to witness, from entire cities (and countries) social distancing to help “flatten the curve” to unforeseen business partnerships sprouting up to help speed up aid. One such “once in a blue moon” event took the tech space by surprise...
Tags: enterprise IT, enterprise network, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, application monitoring, application, apps, app, iOs, android, Apple, Google, smartphone
With teams going remote en masse and across industries, network infrastructures are already being put to the test as a wealth of cloud and web applications travel across diverse network environments to keep far-flung teams in sync. That’s why it’s never been more important that the tools IT teams use to manage and monitor network performance aren’t themselves putting added...
Tags: KPI, management stack, UCaaS, SaaS, branch office, remote office, remote work, enterprise WAN, enterprise network, network monitoring, network management, cloud computing, enterprise IT, network performance monitoring
The past year has seen the market for streaming services turn a big corner into the mainstream as a slew of new offerings – both from legacy broadcasters like Disney and first-time content producers like Apple – have gone live, dealing another blow to once-dominant cable TV. While the majority of the new services are designed with the typical home-viewer...
Tags: work from home, remote work, remote workers, enterprise network, network visibility, observability, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, streaming content, streaming media, streaming video, streaming tv, streaming, Quibi
As many workers adopt work-from-home (WFH) for the first time as part of global social distancing guidance, how many of these positions will remain remote after the pandemic subsides? That’s been the million dollar question of late for many enterprise execs, as employees in positions across the corporate hierarchy are being put to the WFH test for the first time....
Tags: network performance, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, social distancing, remote workers, remote work, WFH, work from home, vancouver tech jobs, vancouver jobs, boston tech jobs, tech jobs, boston jobs, jobs in IT, IT jobs, IT
As enterprises worldwide adjust to nearly 100% work from home (WFH) we can all use a bit of humor. Compiled from across our team, AppNeta is offering a few suggestions to liven up the background of your Zoom or blur your background in Microsoft Teams until they release custom backgrounds later this year. If you don’t know about the feature...
Tags: work from home, WFH, remote work, remote working, remote workers, UCaaS, unified communication, unified communication apps, UC, UC apps, enterprise, enterprise IT, enterprise networks, enterprise WAN, network management, network monitoring, network performance, network performance monitoring
As enterprises lean on communication apps to keep their teams connected amidst “social distancing,” it’s been a busy few weeks for market leaders Slack and Teams, who have seen their daily active users explode while unveiling major solution enhancements. On Wednesday, Mar 18, Slack unveiled the app’s largest platform redesign in nearly five years. Although the update was in the...
Tags: UCaaS, SaaS, messaging apps, Microsoft Teams, Teams, Slack, enterprise communication, communication apps, enterprise network, remote management, remote workers, remote working, remote work, working from home, work from home, network management, network performance monitoring, enterprise IT
Office workers coast-to-coast are getting their first taste of remote work as COVID-19 (also known as the novel coronavirus) forces many who would normally commute to instead set up work from home (WFH). From March 9 to 15, virtual private network (VPN) vendor Atlas saw usage of VPNs, which enable many companies to safely extend their private networks to remote...
Tags: UCaaS, SaaS, cloud computing, enterprise, enterprise IT, enterprise WAN, network management, network performance monitoring, network performance, virtual private network, vpn, working from home, remote working, remote work, wfh, work from home, coronavirus, COVID 19
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According to a recent survey, 81 percent of IT professionals believe that the majority of data center and network management tasks performed today will be automated by 2025, driven in large part by the rise of cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. What’s more, 66 percent of those polled think the on-premises data center will become a relic of the...
Tags: hybrid cloud, multicloud, on premises, data center, cloud migration, cloud adoption, cloud, cloud computing, cloud transformation, digital transformation, enterprise wan, enterprise, enterprise IT, network performance, network monitoring, cloud computing, network performance monitoring
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Remote work in the enterprise has already been on an uptick for quite a while, as more widespread adoption of agile tech and flexible cloud and SaaS applications have made it easier for employers to engage with a far-flung workforce. A recent report shows that between 2007 and 2015, there was a 159 percent jump in remote work across sectors,...
Tags: enterprise IT, enterprise WAN, WAN, VPN, UCaaS, cloud computing, quarantine, work from home, remote workers, epidemic, outbreak, coronavirus, remote work, digital transformation, network performance monitoring
Enterprises are coming to terms with the fact that digital transformation isn’t a singular project with a deadline but a new way of being for workers across the business (and not just IT). Because technology is increasingly woven into every facet of our day-to-day lives, it will continue to evolve as tech expands and has a greater impact on both...
Tags: enterprise IT, technology, business tech, enterprise tech, tech, remote workers, remote work, remote locations, network transformation, enterprise WAN, enterprise networks, enterprise IT, digital transformation
Fifty-four percent of office workers say they’d leave their job for one that offers flexible work time, according to a recent Gallup poll. What’s more, Gallup found that those who work remotely 60 percent to 80 percent of the time (ie. three to four days in a five-day work week) feel that they are more fully engaged with their managers...
Tags: Gallup poll, virtual organization, decentralization, cloud computing, enterprise IT, enterprise WAN, enterprise, work from home, remote workforce, remote office, remote workers, remote work, network monitoring, network performance monitoring
In nearly every field imaginable, digital transformation is paving the way for improved efficiencies, from self check-in at hotels to finance apps upending the way we bank. But in healthcare, improving “the business” goes hand-in-hand with saving lives, or at the very least keeping individuals and their data safe and well – areas where digital transformation could theoretically be making...
Tags: mri, x rays, medical imaging, imaging, HITECH, HIPAA, EHR, EHRs, electronic health records, patient data, healthcare data, data, network performance monitoring, network performance, cloud computing, cloud, digital transformation, healthcare digital transformation, healthcare
It’s no secret that the modern contact or call center is transforming from a facility that occupies physical real estate to an almost entirely virtual environment. LL Bean, J.C. Penny and other major retail brands, for instance, are shuttering many of their brick-and-mortar call centers and offering some employees the option to retain their positions, but in a “work-from-home” capacity....
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, AI Operations, AIOps, AI, WAN, enterprise WAN, enterprise call center, enterprise IT, network performance monitoring, network performance, branch office, remote office, remote employee, remote worker, remote work, remote contact center, remote call center, contact center, call center
Not only are branch offices growing in number as enterprises ramp up decentralization, but so is the data being generated at the branch and where that traffic goes. With IaaS and SaaS transforming how apps are delivered to branch locations, these offices are increasingly connecting to both cloud providers and their corporate data centers (if not retiring their dependency on...
Tags: public cloud, hybrid cloud, cloud migration, cloud computing, cloud, IT, enterprise IT, enterprise network, enterprise WAN, SDWAN, SD WAN, MPLS, IaaS, SaaS, remote workforce, remote workers, remote work, work from home, remote location, remote office, branch office, Wifi6, Wifi, 5G, Internet of Things, IoT
Shares of Twitter jumped on Thursday when it was announced that the company passed the billion-dollar revenue threshold for the first time last quarter, as the platform’s daily user base jumped from 145 million to 152 million as 2019 wound to a close. This isn’t altogether surprising, as Twitter has been a hotbed of political deliberation during the leadup to...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network performance, network traffic, network congestion, remote workforce, remote workers, remote work, decentralization, enterprise decentralization, enterprise networks, social media, twitter
Many companies sign on to digital transformation initiatives in the hopes of bringing more efficiency to stakeholders across their organization. Cloud and SaaS apps, for instance, can be more quickly deployed than their legacy, hardware-based counterparts, helping deliver speedy, high-performing services to end users without delay. Networks themselves are transforming from historically hub-and-spoke operations dependent on MPLS connectivity to infrastructures...
Tags: enterprise, enterprise WAN, IT, enterprise IT
It’s safe to say that the 2020 Democratic primaries have gotten off to a rocky start, as the Iowa Caucuses were plagued by what can only be called an epic app malfunction that delayed results well past closing time Monday night. Developed by Shadow, a company that claims to have been involved in Democrat campaigns dating back to the Obama...
Tags: network performance monitoring, application performance, app performance , voting app, voting application, application, voting, iowa caucus, iowa
In our 2020 Enterprise App Report Card, we touched upon the fact that Microsoft’s comprehensive Office 365 suite of enterprise productivity and collaboration tools is relatively unrivaled among AppNeta customers in terms of sheer users. But the software pioneer may soon be facing some stiff competition from another nearly-ubiquitous tech giant, as it was recently announced that Google is looking...
Tags: enterprise IT, enterprise, Microsoft Office, Microsoft, Office 365, enterprise applications, applications, SaaS, UCaaS, unified communications, UC, Google Cloud, Google, cloud computing, cloud, network performance monitoring
As more and more enterprise workflows migrate to cloud, so go the enterprise jobs, according to data culled by staffing website Indeed.com. The findings show that over the past half decade, the number of inquiries and postings for jobs related to cloud computing have been on a steady uptick, with some cloud-related salaries rising in tandem. From October 2018 to...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network monitoring, network management, LAN, WAN, enterprise WAN, enterprise networking, enterprise network, enterprise IT, SaaS, cloud adoption, cloud migration, cloud transformation, cloud IT, cloud jobs, cloud computing
It’s no secret that cloud and SaaS apps are fundamentally changing the game for enterprise IT. While these teams used to own and control the bulk of their hardware-based, legacy workflows, the move to the cloud has empowered IT to offload a lot of their hardware altogether. Best of all, SaaS apps can be launched “as-a-service” in just a few...
Tags: enterprise, enterprise WAN, enterprise IT, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, application performance monitoring, application monitoring, apps, applications, software as a service, software, saas, cloud computing, network performance monitoring
Digital transformation isn’t just an enterprise phenomenon, as anyone who grew up with a cable subscription and a local Blockbuster Video can attest. Today, consumers take their entertainment with them, watching their favorite movies or TV shows from any wireless device they can connect to – a marked digital transformation from the days of the bunny-ear antenna and CRT television....
Tags: network performance monitoring, network performance, IT, enterprise networks, enterprise WAN, enterprise IT, The Mandalorian, Hulu, Peacock, Apple TV+, disney+, disney plus, disney, apple tv plus, apple, streaming wars, streaming
One of the defining characteristics of the modern workforce is the variety of devices employees use to stay connected. Between the rise of BYOD initiatives and the greater availability of mobile-friendly SaaS apps, many workers today split their time between their smartphones, tablets and laptop PCs – while, in some cases, teams have abandoned the PC altogether. At least, that’s...
Tags: enterprise IT, enterprise, Gartner, IDC, Acer, Lenovo, Dell, Apple, digital transformation, network transformation, PC sales, device, smart devices, devices, laptop, personal computer, PC
A recent report from Synergy Research Group that rounds up the decade’s biggest trends in IT spending was at times both predictable and a bit of a head-scratcher. For starters, in 2010, the amount of budget that IT teams were allocating to cloud infrastructure services was practically non-existent. This isn’t altogether surprising, as the cloud as we know it today...
Tags: enterprise WAN, WAN, enterprise network, IT, enterprise IT, iaas, paas, saas, cloud migration, cloud computing, cloud, data center
In an industry where acronyms and initialisms are a dime a dozen, few tech terms are as ubiquitous in the world of enterprise networking as MPLS and SD-WAN. Sure, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and UCaaS represent buzzworthy new workflows that have changed how enterprise IT teams are managing their tech footprints. But when it comes to the underlying networks that support...
Tags: network performance, network management, network performance monitoring, enterprise network, enterprise WAN, enterprise, UCaaS, PaaS, IaaS, SaaS, LAN, WAN, SDWAN, SD WAN, MPLS
As 2019 comes to a close, 66 percent of companies embraced remote work, and for good reason: When businesses don’t have to gather all of their staff at HQ every day, bosses can broaden their search for talent beyond who is available locally, while giving employees more control of where and when they work, which has been proven to pay...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network technology, Unified Communications, UCaaS, software as a service, SaaS, enterprise IT, network management, network monitoring, tips, remote workforce, remote work
At this rate, the term ‘transformation’ may feel a little tired in the context of enterprise IT and networking, as industry forecasts have been anticipating transformative changes to networking operations for the better part of the last decade. But there are a number of truly transformational initiatives gaining steam across the enterprise space that will be a top priority for...
Tags: AWS, Amazon Web Services, Amazon, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, network management, Internet transformation, cloud transformation, SaaS transformation, SaaS, digital transformation, cloud computing
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Last week, the AppNeta team took to Las Vegas for the 2020 Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies (IOCS) Conference, where leaders and learners across the tech landscape converged to discuss where things stand today and get a sense of the future of enterprise networking. As expected, the many flavors of network “transformation” underway across the enterprise space was...
Tags: SaaS, cloud, cloud computing, enterprise IT, enterprise WAN, software defined wide area network, software defined WAN, WAN, SD WAN, Artificial Intelligence, AIops, network performance monitoring, networking, IT ops, IT, IOCS, Gartner IOCS, Gartner
As expected, early tallies are showing that Americans broke spending records across the board over the Thanksgiving weekend, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales exceeding industry analysts’ best estimates. That said, when digging into the data, it paints a somewhat mixed picture for the industry at large, as where and how consumers spent this past weekend marked an interesting...
Tags: retail networks, enterprise network monitoring, network monitoring, holiday shopping, brick and mortar, online store, ecommerce, online shopping, retail transformation, digital transformation, retain, cyber monday, black friday
With AWS re:Invent taking place in Las Vegas this week, ‘cloud’ and all of its associated buzzwords will be the talk of the tech industry (not to say that cloud is ever that far from the tech headlines). That’s because event host Amazon is set to unveil a bevy of new products that are aimed squarely at making cloud migration...
Tags: network performance monitoring, AWS re:Invent, re:Invent, Amazon cloud, AWS, Amazon, networking technology, network technology, networking, cloud migration, cloud computing, cloud
Bargain hunting has become nearly as synonymous with Thanksgiving as turkey and football, thanks in no small part to the rise of omnichannel retail. In fact, a recent study found that consumers who shop both online and in-store over the holiday season are prone to spending twice as much compared to buyers who only leverage a single channel in the...
Tags: online store, online shopping, multichannel retail, multichannel, ecommerce, holiday shopping, holiday season, holiday, thanksgiving, black friday, digital transformation retail, digital transformation, retail, omnichannel retail, omnichannel
While digital transformation is a relatively loose concept as it pertains to the enterprise, software provider MuleSoft characterizes it as “using a combination of new technologies to modernize legacy processes and to identify and implement new business model innovation opportunities.” And according to the company’s 2020 Connectivity Benchmark, 97 percent of IT decision makers are steering such efforts as they...
Tags: business leaders, mobile service, customer experience, enterprise WAN, cloud adoption, cloud migration, enterprise tech, enterprise IT, digital transformation, 2020
At 10:30 PM on October 29, 1969, UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock and his student Charley Kline established an ARPANET link – the first one ever – between their campus and the office of Bill Duval, a programmer at Stanford University. And thus, the seeds of what would become the Internet we know today were planted. And 50 years later, the...
Tags: network management, networking, network, iot, internet of things, industry 4.0, cloud, network performance monitoring, connectivity, arpanet, internet
While SD-WAN has been trending in the enterprise IT space for a few years now, there’s been little official consensus on what these solutions should encompass, let alone what defines a “best-of-breed” SD-WAN. Sure, the label SD-WAN has been marketed publicly by many providers, but in lieu of a standard that defines what exactly these tools should deliver, customers may...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network monitoring, enterprise networks, enterprise WAN, networking technology, industry standards, MEF, software define networking, WAN, SD WAN
Election season is in full swing in the United States, and perhaps one of the more unexpected talking points to grab headlines following the latest round of debates is the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” — also known commonly in the networking world as Industry 4.0. Politics aside, this “revolution” truly does represent a major shift in the ways we think about...
Tags: cloud, VR, AI, manufacturing, digital transformation, fourth industrial revolution, industry 4.0, automation, cloud computing
Enterprise networks are getting faster and more efficient by the day. But while technology seems to evolve and advance at a breakneck pace these days, the humans in charge of managing new tech aren’t always able to keep up. That’s one of the main takeaways of a recent report from the Uptime Institute, which surveyed thousands of IT pros and...
Tags: cloud computing, cloud, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, developers, human error, data center
The days are getting shorter and the nights colder, which means year-end prediction season is upon us again. As 2019 comes to a close, businesses across industries have had to reckon with significant changes driven by digital transformation and a greater reliance on connected technologies to drive business success. But as fast and furious as the rate of change may...
Tags: edge computing, edge, big data and analytics, BDA, big data, CTO, CIO, network monitoring, cloud migration, cloud, cloud computing, SaaS, enterprise technology, enterprise WAN, enterprise IT, 2020 predictions, 2020
As network connectivity becomes increasingly critical to business success in the modern enterprise, ensuring IT and network operations teams have proactive visibility into network performance is essential. Yet a recent survey found that fewer than half of network performance degradations today are discovered by IT before they reach employees or, even worse, customers. According to the survey of 400 end...
Tags: observability, network visibility, return on investment, cloud migration, enterprise WAN, cloud computing, digital transformation, network performance monitoring
Earlier this summer, we unpacked the findings of Accenture’s “Perspective on Cloud Outcomes: Expectation vs. Reality” report, which found that of 200 IT pros polled, hardly one third are satisfied with the results of their cloud migration to date. Now, another report from Accenture is driving the point home that as a new generation of business solutions – namely, cloud...
Tags: cloud migration, digital transformation, ROI, network management, IT solutions, enterprise IT, cloud computing, network performance monitoring
Supply chain automation, multichannel strategies separating retail winners from losers
by
Paul Davenport
on
Another week, another round of mixed-messages for the retail sector, as a string of recent news continues to paint a fuzzy picture for the future of the industry as it reckons with digital transformation. First up was a report from Best Buy that delivered about as mixed a message as market watchers could imagine. While the brand’s latest earnings report,...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network monitoring, innovation, digital transformation, retail, supply chain, automation
From funky new approaches to interior design to “thinking green” about plastic toiletries, many established hotel brands are going to great lengths to appeal to a new generation of travelers who put “experiences” (read: Instagrammable moments) ahead of material when it comes to spending. But the biggest and most impactful changes that hotel brands are instituting lately go beyond edgy...
Tags: digital transformation, digital first, selfie, network technology, citizenM, moxy, hospitality industry, cloud computing, Boston, hospitality, hotel industry, microhotel, micro hotel, network performance monitoring
We recently discussed how educators in Florida are spearheading a revolutionary telehealth initiative to connect students living with the trauma of last year’s Hurricane Michael – the first Category 5 storm to make landfall in almost three decades – with mental health professionals in schools. But as the southeastern US reckons with the fallout of another monster storm in the...
Tags: network performance monitoring, network monitoring, digital transformation, hospital tech, hospital technology, telehealth, hurricane, hurricane dorian
According to recent data from analyst firm Atos, banks can increase their operating profits by 30 percent through 2020 by embracing more digital workflows. In particular, hybrid cloud is proving to be the preferred avenue for digital transformation in the finance world, as hybrid helps level the playing field between traditional banks and a slew of digital disruptors. When discussing...
Tags: enterprise WAN, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, financial services, banks, finace, cloud computing, hybrid cloud
A decade back, before cell phones became “smart” and armed almost every man, woman and child with a full-fledged, pocket-sized PC, network management teams were able to set and enforce fairly predictable use policies for employee devices. After all, it was (and remains) common for IT to supply computers to employees, while intelligent mobile devices (usually Blackberries, which were hardly...
Tags: cloud computing, smartphones, tablets, smartphone, bring your own device, network performance monitoring, network management and monitoring, application management, device management, BYOD, digital transformation
The start of the school year can be daunting under any circumstances. But for students in Northwest Florida, this fall marks the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Michael, one of the most damaging hurricanes on record and the first Category 5 to reach the U.S. mainland since 1992. For many in this corner of the state, memories of the Michael are...
Tags: hurricane michael, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, cloud computing, telehealth connectivity, academic network, school network, telehealth, digital transformation
According to a survey of Netflix subscribers conducted back in the summer of 2017, almost 40 percent of respondents admitted to streaming from the platform while on the job. Two years later, streaming in general has never been more popular, and a rash of Netflix competitors are about to launch, flooding workers with distracting content they can binge on the...
Tags: Amazon streaming, Amazon, enterprise IT, enterprise networks, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, streaming at work, streaming video, streaming, Netflix, Disney, Disney+
Any major network – especially a highly distributed one – that fails to change with the times is bound to pay a price. And while concepts like digital transformation are generally applied to industry verticals in the quest for greater business outcomes (and ultimately profits), the same principles can be applied to the sphere of education as a means to...
Tags: cloud computing, university network, college network, cloud computing, big data and analytics, network performance monitoring, campus technology, university, college, digital transformation
We’ve said it before and we’ll keep on saying it: Undertaking any changes–big or small–to your network without having a data-driven strategy is a recipe for failure. But the message to date seems to be falling on deaf ears at many mature finance and telecom companies, as fewer than 35 percent of the IT leaders in this sector rely on...
Tags: digital transformation, ROI, CIO, enterprise IT, cloud computing, network performance monitoring, cloud migration
In Boston and other coastal tech hubs, the booming startup culture has been a boon when it comes to amping up the economy and attracting new residents, but something of a burden where factors like traffic and mass transit are concerned. As a result, leaders in Massachusetts have come up with a potential solution to some of their traffic woes:...
Tags: work from home, vermont, tokyo, telecommuting, remote work, remote office, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, boston
Consumers are well aware of how connected technologies are speeding up the delivery of goods and services, enabling new and diverse methods for communication and even breaking down the geographical barriers to where and how they work. But when it comes to the production of those goods consumers can order with just a few taps on their smartphone (and even...
Tags: network performance monitoring, manufacturing, iot, industry 4.0, industrial revolution, industrial iot, iiot, cloud computing, big data analytics, big data, automation
Think remote work is just a passing fad? Take a look at the businesses popping up in support of the concept, and you might be convinced otherwise. Take, for example, Pizzatime, a new service from digital agency Planetary that organizes virtual pizza parties for teams collaborating from multiple branch locations. Leveraging Slack, the tool takes orders from each team member...
Tags: work from home, ucaas, saas, remote work, remote office, remote location monitoring, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, distributed enterprise, developers, decentralized business, communication apps
Every sector faces unique roadblocks on their path to the cloud. In life sciences, however, the stakes of executing a successful digital transformation can literally be life or death, and protecting patients and their data has always been a top concern when adopting new technology. In that same vein, however, a reluctance to innovate or deploy technologies that can speed...
Tags: network performance monitoring, life sciences, healthcare, digital transformation, cloud migration, cloud adoption
According to a recent Salesforce report, 71 percent of enterprise IT teams are transforming from “a technology-providing cost center to a value-based service brokerage.” What does that mean exactly? For starters, the IT department of the past was very much a reactionary operation. That’s not to say that IT teams were always playing catch up, but actually the opposite: The...
Tags: web apps, web applications, saas, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, enterprise network monitoring, enterprise it, cloud computing, cloud
According to the latest figures from the Commerce Department, online shopping has overtaken grocery stores and restaurants in terms of retail market share to become the second largest category in this sector, trailing only vehicle and auto parts sales in the United States as of this June. As to be expected, a great deal of the surge in popularity for...
Tags: retail, online shopping, omnichannel, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, multichannel retail, multichannel, mobile shopping, amazon
Slack vs. Teams: Latest tech “arms race” centers on enterprise communications tools
by
Paul Davenport
on
Since the earliest days of Silicon Valley, competing tech companies have always been engaged in a virtual arms race for loyal users. Whether it’s PC versus Mac, or AWS versus Azure, there always seem to be at least two dueling behemoths involved whenever a new technology takes the scene. As we’ve covered in recent posts, communication software seems to be...
Tags: ucaas, teams, slack, network performance monitoring, network monitoring, microsoft teams, microsoft, messaging apps, communication apps, cloud, applications
Streaming on the job: Netflix Hangouts attempts, but fails, to mask video streams
by
Paul Davenport
on
Jealous that you’re missing out on the watercooler chatter surrounding Season 3 of Stranger Things? A new Chrome extension aims to have you covered. Netflix Hangouts is the latest in a long line of programs designed to help workers leverage their office networks for less-than-business-critical activities. The program creates what looks like a standard four-person video conference -- a communication...
Tags: enterprise network monitoring, Netflix, netflix hangouts, network monitoring, network performance, network performance monitoring, network speed, office culture, remote office monitoring, streaming video
Despite the fact that the United States’ healthcare system is among the world’s most expensive, it ranks at the bottom of developed nations where efficiency and effectiveness are concerned. That’s because not unlike in finance, where customer experience has been the primary benefactor of digital transformation initiatives, healthcare tech has been slow to transform where back-office operations are concerned. At...
Tags: digital transformation, healthcare, healthcare digital transformation, PII
We’ve recently touched upon how digital transformation has been making a serious impact across industries, from the previously cloud-averse financial sector down to the assembly line. Retail, however, is one industry that’s perhaps felt the burn (and the boon, ie. Amazon, WalMart, Wayfair) of digital transformation more than any other. But while retailers have been credited with evolving in response...
Tags: digital transformation, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, retail digital transformation, retail networks, retail transformation
Between The Master’s and The Women’s World Cup, sports fans have had a lot of mid-day distractions lately. And while it’s not a sport in the traditional sense, the impending Democratic presidential debates present yet another heated competition that is likely to have many office workers switching back-and-forth between live streams over the coming months. Mixing work and politics is...
Tags: 2020 election, cloud computing, democratic debate, enterprise IT, enterprise network, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, presidential debate, streaming video
When it comes to working in tech, being in the “right zipcode” is no longer the barrier to entry that it was in years past, a report from CompTIA suggests. In the company’s Tech on the Move survey, 78 percent of tech workers polled would consider leaving their current city for a new tech job, with affordability (60 percent) and...
Tags: branch office, cloud, cloud computing, network monitoring, network monitoring tools, network performance monitoring, remote locations, remote work, remote workers, tech workers
According to our 2019 State of Enterprise IT report, “brand damage” is one of the biggest impacts of poor end-user experience. If you needed an example of what this looks like in action, look no further than Target’s recent string of bad luck and the ensuing social media fallout. On Sunday, June 16th, the company experienced an outage that impacted...
Tags: network monitoring, network outage, outage, retail, retail monitoring, social media
Reports show that only a third of cloud migrations are being executed successfully
by
Paul Davenport
on
A recent Accenture survey of enterprise tech pros found that only one third of companies that have undergone cloud migration are reaping the expected results. The report, which received feedback from roughly 200 IT pros, emphasizes a “tale as old as time” about adopting any kind of new technology or workflow: Expectations can quickly get inflated when they aren’t rooted...
Tags: cloud adoption, cloud computing, cloud migration, data, data storage, enterprise IT, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, networking hardware
Days 2 and 3 at Cisco Live 2019 in San Diego were jam-packed with activity for the AppNeta team. Look no further than Senior Sales Director Mike Mattei’s viral picture from the show floor for proof: Check out Mike Mattei breaking a sweat at #CLUS 2019 in San Diego! Come visit Mike and the rest of the AppNeta team at...
Tags: #CLUS, Cisco, Cisco Live 2019, CiscoLive, cloud migration, network performance monitoring, remote office monitoring, saas, San Diego, SDWAN
The opening keynote from Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins started by pointing out that this was the company’s 30th year hosting a version Cisco Live, emphasizing just how much has changed in the tech world since the conference was born in 1989 as “Networkers.” (Shoutout to our intern @JarrettLee828 for leveraging that bit of knowledge for a prize during the show)...
Tags: #CLUS, Cisco Live, cloud migration, industry events, network performance monitoring, remote location monitoring, remote office monitoring, saas, SaaS applications, SDWAN
Google recently published an eye-opening report that looked at the impact of remote work on large organizations, a topic the behemoth search engine-cum-tech monolith is well suited to explore. After all, according to the company, at least 30 percent of all meetings held between employees involve at least two time zones. That makes sense when you consider that 2 in...
Tags: cloud computing, decentralized business, distributed enterprise, enterprise IT, google, IT, network performance monitoring, NPM, NPMD, remote office, remote work, remote worker
According to the findings of our 2019 State of Enterprise IT report, only 53.5% of all enterprises are knowingly employing a network performance monitoring solution. That means that despite the fact that enterprises the world over are, by and large, overhauling their legacy networks to embrace enterprise decentralization, only about half of IT teams are even sure they have a...
Tags: cloud computing, cloud migration, digital transformation, enterprise IT, IT challenges, network performance monitoring, network performance monitoring and diagnostics, saas, State of Enterprise IT, UCaaS
When the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went live a year ago, companies across the globe were bracing for the sky to fall. And while there were certainly some headline-grabbing fines for noncompliance (most notably, Google’s almost 50 million Euro hit this past January related to “forced consent”), the mandate’s first year was far less “doom and gloom”...
Tags: cloud, cloud computing, compliance, EU, European Union, GDPR, General Data Protection Regulation, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, regulatory technology
According to a recent report from Gartner, anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of enterprise app spending takes place “in the shadows” -- that is, without the knowledge of enterprise IT, and potentially in violation of network policies. Known as “Shadow IT,” the rogue use of apps that leverage WAN capacity has exploded alongside the widespread adoption of SaaS for...
Tags: applications, cloud computing, enterprise IT, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, saas, shadow IT, WAN, web apps
The financial sector has been notoriously averse to embracing the scale of digital transformation that has transformed other industries from the top-down (think Industry 4.0, IoT in Healthcare, virtual dressing rooms, etc.). While banks of all sizes have adopted cloud computing for non-core functions, many still rely on legacy, hardware-defined workflows when it comes to business-critical operations and customer transactions....
Tags: cloud adoption, cloud migration, digital transformation, finance, finance tech, financial sector, financial technology, fintech, network performance, network performance monitoring, regtech, regulatory technology
Fostering a happy and effective work culture isn’t about following fads. In the 8-plus years since AppNeta was founded, tech companies like ours have been known to deploy lots of gimmicks to attract the best talent, which may be a flashy-enough sell to get interested workers through the door, but not enough to build a team for the long haul....
Tags: family first, best office, best workplaces, Inc 5000, Inc Best Workplaces 2019, network monitoring, network performance monitoring, office culture
Last week, the AppNeta team traveled down to Dallas for ONUG Spring 2019, where we met with other leaders in the enterprise networking space to discuss the challenges and solutions organizations face as they put connected technologies front-and-center. The agenda for the event zeroed in on Digital Transformation in particular, which, as a concept, can be loaded. As we’ve discussed...
Tags: cloud, cloud computing, cloud migration, digital transformation, network performance, network performance monitoring, network performance monitoring and diagnostics, ONUG, ONUG Spring 2019
Remote work is by no means a new concept, but recent high-profile announcements suggest that this model is fast graduating from “a novel approach” to an operational standard across industries. At Facebook’s recent F8 2019 developer conference, for instance, Stripe, a tech platform that builds economic infrastructure for web companies, announced that the company would be opening up a fifth...
Tags: branch office, cloud, cloud computing, cloud monitoring, digital transformation, network performance, network performance monitoring, remote office, remote work
ECMP is a routing technique that allows traffic sharing the same source and destination to be distributed through multiple network paths of equal cost. This involves leveraging routing metric calculations with hash algorithms to determine which available “next-hop” routers can be leveraged at the same price point to deliver traffic from one flow to its destination. In simplest terms, ECMP...
Tags: ECMP, Network Monitoring, DNS
While consensus over what digital transformation actually means still appears to elude many members of the C-Suite, enterprise investment into the concept has never been higher, according to a recent report from IDC. Across virtually every industry and sector, total spending on digital transformation will jump roughly 18 percent in 2019 to a new high-water mark of $1.18 trillion. Gearing...
Tags: cloud, cloud computing, digital transformation, finance, industrial IoT, industry 4.0, IoT, manufacturing, network monitoring, network performance, network performance monitoring, tech industry
Cloud-based call centers have gone from risky experiments to a business standard over the course of the last decade. According to research from IDG, 62.4 percent of global enterprises now use cloud (or virtual) contact centers to facilitate their customer service and outreach operations, and for good reason. For starters, this reflects an overall trend of enterprise decentralization, where companies...
Tags: call center, cloud call center, cloud computing, cloud contact center, contact center, network performance, network performance monitoring, virtual call center, virtual contact center
In an age when “appointment television” is a nearly-dead concept (outside of Game of Thrones at least), people still go out of their way to make sure they catch their favorite team or player live. We’ve seen it firsthand here at AppNeta. Take the latest Masters Tournament: Ahead of Tiger Woods taking home his first title trophy in over a...
Tags: cloud, cloud computing, cloud monitoring, Network, network capacity, network monitoring, network performance, network performance monitoring, sports streaming, streaming, streaming services
What is digital transformation, exactly? If you ask senior enterprise leaders who took part in a recent report from CompleteSpectrum, you’ll be hard pressed to get a straight answer. According to the study, which polled 300 members of leadership teams at companies with between $15 million and $200 million in annual revenue, 94 percent said that digital transformation was a...
Tags: cloud computing, digital transformation, enterprise, enterprise leaders, network management, network monitoring, network performance monitoring
According to the Cloud Adoption and Risk Report 2019 from McAfee, cloud usage grew 15 percent last year, establishing a new high-water mark for enterprise adoption. The average enterprise now employs roughly 1,935 cloud apps, with business applications (ie. Google Drive, Office 365 or Salesforce) accounting for 70 percent of total cloud services. (This may seem high, but McAfee likely...
Tags: cloud era, cloud networking, mean time to innocence, mean time to resolution, mtti, mttr, network management, network monitoring, network performance monitoring
Last week, the AppNeta team took to the Great White North to host an industry luncheon and panel in Toronto, looking at the challenges of network management as cloud takes on a bigger role in the enterprise space. Moderated by our own Chief Customer Officer Adam Edwards, the panel also included John Menezes, President & CEO of Stratejm, Alfred Ng,...
Tags: cloud, cloud computing, cloud visibility, enterprise, enterprise network, finance, finance tech, industry commentary, network performance, network performance monitoring, tech industry, toronto
For years, the center of gravity within the tech sector has been squarely located in Silicon Valley, the storied West Coast home of Apple, Alphabet, and pretty much every other tech behemoth you can imagine (with a few notable exceptions like Amazon). As a result, tech workers have notoriously fled competing job markets in the hopes of landing gigs in...
Tags: branch office, network performance, network performance monitoring, network technology, remote employee, remote office, remote workers, tech company
When monitoring an enterprise network, teams often think that they need to focus squarely on the apps that are deemed “business critical,” and little else. While the logic here isn’t flawed, per se, this approach robs IT of the holistic picture of network conditions they need to truly understand where their network capacity is being spent. Without this full picture...
Tags: app performance, applications, apps, business and IT goals, business applications, network performance, network performance monitoring, social media, streaming
The Facebook outage that impacted the company’s globally-popular suite of social media apps last week certainly caused lots of headaches. But reports that the interruptions were due to issues on the network level proved premature. Facebook operates its own collection of 15 data centers globally, which serve as a redundant, internal backbone network. As a result, the public doesn’t readily...
Tags: application performance, Application Performance Monitoring, facebook, facebook outage, network performance, network performance monitoring
The World Wide Web turned 30 years old this month, and like any Millennial entering their third decade, there were plenty of cringeworthy moments along the way. While the growth of widespread connectivity has undoubtedly helped change our day-to-day reality since it was invented in 1989, even the Web’s “parents” are uneasy about some of the changes. In an open...
Tags: direct internet access, happy birthday www, Internet, Network, network monitoring, network performance, web, world wide web
The rate of change in the hospitality sector over the past decade has been staggering. While booking apps, AirBnB, and ratings websites have certainly been disruptors, it’s really the changing demands of travelers that have put technology at the center of the lodging experience. And hoteliers are taking note. A recent study from Forrester Research found that of all the...
Tags: hospitality, hotel, hotel technology, hotels, network performance, network performance monitoring
AppNeta Consistently Ranks in the Top 3 for 2019 Gartner NPMD Critical Capabilities Report
by
Paul Davenport
on
Hot on the heels of the 2019 Magic Quadrant (MQ) for Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics (NPMD) comes Gartner’s Critical Capabilities Report for NPMD, and more great news for AppNeta! Not only did we advance to a Visionary placement in the MQ -- even as the field of qualified competitors narrowed to 16 vendors from 22 in 2018 -- but...
Tags: gartner, gartner critical capabilities, gartner magic quadrant, Magic Quadrant, network performance monitoring, network performance monitoring and diagnostics, saas
Delivering visibility is central to everything we do at AppNeta. Not only does our platform allow enterprise IT to see into all corners of their network, but transparency and clarity is central to how we operate as a company, too. It’s fitting, therefore, that AppNeta was named a Visionary in the 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Performance Monitoring and...
Tags: application performance, cloud, gartner, Magic Quadrant, network performance monitoring, network performance monitoring and diagnostics, NPM, NPMD, saas, SaaS applications
This week there are two pieces of news in the DNS world which remind us that DNS is not simply “it just works” technology that can be forgotten about. Like many things, DNS requires a little ongoing care and attention! First is the US-CERT DNS Infrastructure Hijacking Campaign bulletin. It warns of an organized campaign to use compromised credentials to...
Tags: DNS, DNS hijacking, DNS performance, encryption, network performance, network performance monitoring, networking hardware
Enterprise IT and end users alike tend to take the Domain Name System (DNS) for granted. While those who don’t work in network operations might not even know what DNS is -- let alone the central role it plays in making the Internet a space humans can navigate -- even IT often just expects the system to always perform. DNS...
Tags: cloud, cloud applications, DNS, DNS monitoring, end user experience, end user experience monitoring, network performance, network performance monitoring
Before the days of personal computing -- and well before the dawn of smart devices -- it was easier for the relatively few users leveraging the Internet to recognize familiar IP addresses, like memorizing a home phone number in the pre-caller ID days. While we may type URLs into search bars and click “Send” on email, computers don’t actually read...
Tags: IP address, DNS server, DNS outage, DNS monitoring, world wide wibe, Internet, border gateway protocol, BGP, domain name system, DNS, network performance monitoring, networking hardware, SD WAN, SDN
It was a busy week for the AppNeta team at the 2018 Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud Strategies Conference, where we chatted with dozens of IT pros on the show floor. This is a new combination for Gartner, bringing IT Operations and Data Center disciplines together, which made for some very interesting discussions around migration and the pain associated...
Tags: application performance, best practices, cloud, cloud infrastructure, data center, end user experience, gartner, IT, IT infrastructure, performance monitoring
IN PRACTICE | This article is part of a series of posts sharing examples of how AppNeta users have leveraged the service to solve performance problems. Problem A civil engineering firm uses Skype for Business heavily in their day-to-day operations, for both internal and external calls. Since migrating to the cloud last year, it has been their primary VoIP application....
Tags: call quality, in practice, mean opinion score, Skype, UCaaS, voip
Today AppNeta announced a number of exciting product enhancements that we’ve been working on over the past few months. This includes some major milestones in the software that our development teams have been pushing towards over the past few bi-weekly releases and a whole new line of hardware and virtual monitoring points to enable AppNeta to deliver industry-leading flexibility for...
Tags: AppNeta Performance Manager, bgp, DNS, Monitoring Points, Product Updates, SD WAN
IN PRACTICE | This article is part of a series of posts sharing examples of how AppNeta users have leveraged the service to solve performance problems. Introduction Transient issues can be a huge problem on large network infrastructures. Not only are they hard to catch, but it is even harder to isolate root cause. A large US telecommunications customer continuously...
Tags: call center, customer, distributed app, in practice, IT troubleshooting, network performance monitoring, Use case
IN PRACTICE | This article is part of a series of posts sharing examples of how AppNeta users have leveraged the service to solve performance problems. What Problem Was the Customer Attempting to Solve? In retail, slow performance in Point of Sale (POS) applications has an immediate impact. When numerous complaints came in regarding overall performance slowdowns for a large...
Tags: customer, distributed app, in practice, IT troubleshooting, network performance monitoring, retail, Use case
With the upcoming enforcement of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we here at AppNeta want to share the steps we have taken to protect our customers and their data. In general, GDPR wants you to: Collect as little information as is necessary, keep it for as short amount of time as is necessary and share it with...
Tags: compliance, GDPR, security
Network Visibility Isn’t the End Goal
by
Joe Michalowski
on
The day security and monitoring appliances were added to network infrastructure was the day that visibility became a major IT concern. However, IT complexity has grown exponentially in recent years, making network visibility a bit of a buzzword. Perhaps the biggest reason is the widespread shift to cloud computing. Cisco research found that by 2019, 89% of workloads will be...
Tags: end user experience, network monitoring, network visibility
IoT is Pushing Us to the Edge, Literally
by
Lea Rabinowitz
on
Imagine an Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled smart shoe that has the capability for workers to send or receive alerts while working in dangerous areas. The possibilities are just incredible. What we once dreamed of as future technology is now at our fingertips to create opportunities across workplaces and at home. As we see a proliferation of IoT devices, it’s time...
Tags: edge computing, IoT, network monitoring
Cloud-Native Computing Takes Over IT Infrastructures
by
Christine Cignoli
on
“Cloud-native” technology has likely come across your radar screen at some point in the last few years, but what does it mean, exactly? There’s a good explainer here on cloud-native computing, a concept that runs through any cloud service. Any applications, architectures, platforms and processes that work toward increasing IT’s ability to change and reduce unpredictability can be described as...
Tags: AWS, public cloud, SaaS applications
WebRTC: Boon for End-User Experience, Burden for Networks?
by
Joe Michalowski
on
Like just about any other technology, WebRTC has followed the hype cycle pretty closely. (Were you surprised to see a headline on this topic in 2018?) WebRTC, an open source project, aims to boost mobile apps and browsers to real-time speed using APIs. After reaching peak hype around 2013, we slipped down into the trough of disillusionment. However, at times...
Tags: video conferencing, voip, webRTC
Is Intent-Based Networking Worth Waiting For?
by
Lea Rabinowitz
on
In a recent blog post on the modern networking technologies of 2018, we discussed one of the newest IT buzzwords—intent-based networking (IBN). Like any nascent concept, it can take a couple of mentions before it piques interest. It’s been appearing more regularly in networking conversations, though. While IBN could easily be dismissed as just another name for software-defined network-based workflow...
Tags: intent based networking, network automation, network design
Can Multicloud Management Solve All Your IT Problems?
by
Christine Cignoli
on
As the GDPR go-live date approaches in late May, we’ve heard some buzz as companies examine their data to see if they’ll be in line with the new EU requirements. It’s such an interconnected global world now that most businesses, even American ones, need to be ready for any GDPR fallout. Fines will be stiff for noncompliance. For most companies,...
Tags: GDPR, multicloud, saas sprawl
There are plenty of shiny new technologies available to enterprise IT teams today. The network underpins business infrastructure, and it’s key to making all these new applications and tools work smoothly. But most businesses don’t have the luxury of starting over with an entirely cloud-driven, SaaS-based infrastructure. In some way or another, they’re stuck with legacy tools. IT teams have...
Unpatched Routers Play Host to Huge New Botnet
by
Andrew Sanders
on
The next internet-crashing botnet is slowly starting to wake up. Since late December, a botnet known as Satori has been infecting new endpoints and generally showing the signs of a disaster waiting to happen. How should you brace yourself for the next large-scale DDoS attack? A Dormant Botnet Reawakens The last time we saw the Satori botnet was in 2016—back...
Tags: botnets, IoT, malware, network monitoring
IoT and 5G Both Require Strong Network Foundations
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Christine Cignoli
on
As new, exciting technologies become reality, IT teams are updating systems and considering the best technology options to support new tools. IoT, for example, needs a strong networking foundation. It’s more than just a reliable network that’s needed, but a complex network design that allows for real-time data analysis between and among all the dispersed IoT sensors. That data today...
Tags: 5G, NFV, wifi, WiFi monitoring
SaaS Applications Evolve As Challenges Test IT Teams
by
Christine Cignoli
on
If you’re keeping up with application development trends lately, you may have heard the term “progressive web apps” come up. This concept of progressive apps is a new type of web app standard that aims to make web apps more like native applications. These aren’t entirely brand-new, written-from-scratch applications, but are instead improved over time—progressively—with modern features. The result is...
Tags: intent based networking, SaaS issues, web applications
Who's Winning in the Cloud ERP Software Market?
by
Andrew Sanders
on
For some time, there’s been a quiet war going on between the top three providers of enterprise ERP software—SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. Lately, that war has been taking place on a new front: the cloud. All three major players have pushed out cloud versions of their flagship ERP software within the last few years, with varying degrees of success. Let’s...
Tags: cloud ERP, erp, Office 365, sa`, SaaS applications
ATS Automation Monitors Global Sites With AppNeta for Better Performance
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Christine Cignoli
on
IT Role: Raj Avinish, Senior Network Engineer Company: ATS Automation Needs: Network and application monitoring to improve performance for users at 35+ remote locations Results: Better user experience, improved root cause identification ATS Automation is a tool manufacturing industry leader, with a data center each in the U.S. and Germany. Network engineer Raj Avinish is responsible for the performance of...
Tags: case study, ISP, monitoring data
Public Cloud Success Will Require Rearchitecting, Fine-Tuning
by
Christine Cignoli
on
By the end of 2019, 60% of business will have moved their operations primarily to a SaaS model and away from on-premises, according to a recent 451 Research survey. Amazon and Microsoft have traction in the cloud market for these businesses, of course. 35% say that Microsoft will become their most strategic cloud partner, while 17% name Amazon. That’s a...
Adopt Cloud Tools Only When Your IT Team Is Ready
by
Christine Cignoli
on
As networking hardware gets cheaper, it’s having an effect on how data centers are connecting to each other. As big providers like Amazon, Google and the rest start using SDN and SD-WAN more widely, the hardware costs are coming down. Those hardware costs used to be the biggest consideration when building and provisioning data centers, but that’s not the case...
ERP is Changing Because of the Cloud—How Should IT Departments Change in Return?
by
Andrew Sanders
on
The cloud changes things, and not always in a good way. A recent survey from the security vendor AlgoSec shows that 30% of companies find that their applications don't work as expected after a cloud migration. ERP is no exception to that rule. Those using cloud ERP solutions increasingly find that once their vendors finish porting their applications to the...
Tags: cloud applications, cloud ERP, erp
SDN, NFV and 5G Wireless Will Drive IoT, Networking Teams
by
Christine Cignoli
on
If you take a peek at the telecom world, you see a couple of big networking trends that are making waves there. However, changes are still slow to come, since network managers have a lot of legacy networks and infrastructure in place now. Ripping and replacing is expensive, time-consuming and risky. This expert thinks 2020 will be the year of...
Tags: cloud infrastructure, IoT, networking protocols, NFV, patching
Resolve to Declutter SaaS Sprawl With Multicloud Management
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Happy New Year! Do you have a resolution to declutter this year? If you’re hoping to declutter the SaaS application sprawl in your organization, try to stay realistic on that front. Most companies, according to these cloud experts, know they’re spending too much on disparate SaaS and web apps, but don’t have the time or know how to fix the...
Tags: cloud providers, saas sprawl, SDN
Are You Prepared for How the GDPR Will Change WiFi Networks?
by
Andrew Sanders
on
Not enough American companies are ready for the GDPR—the General Data Protection Regulation, adopted last year in the European Union and set to go into effect in May of 2018. According to research from Spiceworks, only 5% of US companies are currently preparing for these data protection regulations. On the face of it, this seems like a reasonable thing not...
Tags: data protection, wifi, WiFi monitoring
End-User Experience Now Critical for Effective IT—But Companies Missing the Mark
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Embracing the digital workplace is top priority for any tech-driven organization—and in a world dominated by smartphones, social media and always-on connected devices, “tech-driven” covers almost any company looking to stay competitive. The challenge is creating an end-user experience that leads to digital solutions. According to CMS Wire, “the heart of every successful digital workplace is a great, engaging experience,...
Tags: end user experience, end user experience monitoring, legacy IT
Tackle SaaS Application Sprawl With Orchestration, Better Security Measures
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Is SaaS sprawl creeping in to your enterprise environment? Orchestration might be a good goal for 2018. Building an orchestration environment means that IT’s resources, services and workflows are available to users in a self-service way. So for cloud deployments, a cloud orchestration system means that there’s a specific workflow to follow when a business user requests a common task,...
Tags: cloud management, IoT, SaaS applications
SaaS Apps and Modern Networks Need Strong Management
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Here’s a philosophical question for network engineers everywhere: What does stability mean, anyway? The inimitable Ethan Banks offers some time-tested, practical tips on what makes for lasting network stability today. One important piece of advice is to control your impulses to play around with network features and functionality. Don’t experiment in a production environment, and don’t go rogue just for...
Performance Monitoring That Works for Both IT Operations and Application Owners
by
Lea Rabinowitz
on
From the earliest days of online-dating services, “love algorithms” searched almost exclusively on what clients deemed to be their ideal characteristics in a partner. Singles would check boxes on hair color, religion, location, and interests, and wait for the results. Undoubtedly, what came out didn’t really align with the kind of partner they were actually attracted to. Algorithms had to...
Tags: IT operations, network performance monitoring, SaaS monitoring
Using SaaS and Cloud Require Careful Data Wrangling
by
Christine Cignoli
on
The annual AWS re:invent conference wrapped up this week, with more than 43,000 attendees gathering. Some hot topics included AI and machine learning, but the bigger picture revolved around Amazon’s work to continue its public cloud dominance, according to this account. Microsoft and Google continue to work to take market share away, though AWS had a lot of announcements to...
Tags: AWS, cloud data migration, cloud infrastructure, SaaS applications
Cloud Silos, Performance Pressures Are IT Challenges for 2018
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Happy December! First up, a recent survey finds that IaaS use nearly doubled from 2014 to 2016, and that enterprises are continuing to charge ahead with all kinds of cloud use. Multicloud use is already pretty well-established, with 72% of companies using between two and five cloud providers. We predict that staying on top of all these cloud instances and...
Software-Defined Network Elements Slowly Come to IT
by
Christine Cignoli
on
On the road toward software-defined everything, WAN virtualization could play an important part. SDN is useful for a lot of data center networking tasks, like switching. But SDN across existing IP networks doesn’t necessarily bring a lot of value, and many businesses wouldn’t be able to afford to invest in entirely new software-defined networks. SD-WAN, though, has emerged as a...
Tags: cloud networking, SD WAN monitoring, SDN
Planning Your Network Technology Future? Many Choices Ahead
by
Christine Cignoli
on
The fall ONUG conference a few weeks back explored lots of emerging networking technology and trends. Here’s a good look into some of those, including network infrastructure consolidation, where SD-WAN functionality is packaged into a larger product that also offers routing, security and other features. Then there’s automation, which one expert argues is the only way for businesses to get...
Which Software-Defined Networking Trends Will Your IT Team Adopt?
by
Christine Cignoli
on
You know what happens this time of year, as Halloween is approaching: It’s time for next year’s technology predictions to arrive. Here, there's a look at some potential 2018 networking trends around SD-WAN in particular. One that caught our attention was the addition of security features like firewall functionality, and the expectation that antivirus and flexible security feature deployment will...
Tags: remote office monitoring, SD WAN, SDN
Choosing Network Infrastructure for Modern Apps and Users
by
Christine Cignoli
on
With ONUG Fall 2017 coming up next week, we’re taking a moment to reflect on some of the big network changes and trends of the year. So many parts of IT infrastructure are now overlapping, and networking technology is the glue that holds it all together. New demands on the network, with SaaS, cloud and now IoT in the picture,...
SaaS Application Upkeep Requires Visibility, Vigilance
by
Christine Cignoli
on
The promise of cloud and SaaS was supposed to be that it’s hands-off for IT and won’t take up internal resources. But for Office 365 at least, that’s not the case. One study found that 70% of enterprises using Office 365 report latency issues on a weekly basis, and 33% report them daily. This story has more details about the...
Tags: Office 365, SaaS applications, SaaS issues
Make SD-WAN Choices With a Vision for the Future
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Here’s a great recent look at the top challenges that IT teams are facing, courtesy of a survey done at VMworld. We’re not surprised to see that performance was named as the top challenge, with 38% of respondents choosing it. We hear daily about the pressures on IT to provide good performance, and the obstacles they have to clear to...
Tags: SD WAN, SD WAN monitoring, SDN
Apple’s latest OS—iOS 11—launches tomorrow. With half to two-thirds of device users running iOS 10, reflecting the huge base of iPhone users, this is no small event for corporate networks. Users bring their devices to work as a matter of course, whether they use them a little or a lot for actual work. So while users are eager for new...
Why It Matters That Unified Communications Aren't Actually Unified
by
Joe Michalowski
on
Is it time yet to acknowledge that unified communications (UC) is more of a buzzword than a real business solution? We’ve been hearing about the promises of UC applications for upwards of 20 years—ever since messaging and real-time communication started coming together. But the real temptation of UC was that all of your communications needs—voice, video, instant messaging—would come together...
Tags: collaboration tools, shadow IT, unified communications
The Road to Better Performance Is Paved With Networking Technology
by
Christine Cignoli
on
We always like to hear the stories of those IT early adopters for a new technology. In this story, it’s several heads of IT who’ve adopted SD-WAN. For both, their companies needed a better way to provision and manage branch office infrastructure. For one, the Bay Club Company, using SD-WAN is actually helping IT drive revenue. Provisioning new locations is...
Tags: MPLS, remote office monitoring, SD WAN, WAN
The SD-WAN Adoption Curve Brings IT Choice
by
Christine Cignoli
on
The adoption curve for technology (what Gartner calls the Hype Cycle) is interesting to watch for various products. As SD-WAN matures, we start to see differentiation between products and types of deployment. This story has a useful breakdown of the SD-WAN choices IT teams can make, whether they install it on-premises only, in a cloud-enabled way, or a cloud-enabled way...
The partnership between VMware and AWS is good for both VMware and AWS—but it’s also good for IT. Any IT team managing a virtualized environment with VMware, which is a solid majority of IT teams, can move those virtual workloads to the AWS cloud without reengineering anything. Previously, VMware-heavy IT shops were locked into their complex virtualized environments, and locked...
Tags: AWS, public cloud providers, vmware
How Big Data Causes Big Problems for the WAN
by
Joe Michalowski
on
Who doesn’t love data these days? For business leaders, the more data you can collect, the better. Some might resist certain technologies in digital transformation, but it seems everyone can agree that big data analytics makes business life easier. Everyone except IT leaders, that is. While business leaders add ever-increasing data inputs with IoT sensors, IT teams are left to...
Tags: big data analytics, remote location monitoring, SD WAN, WAN
SD-WAN is gaining traction quickly with a lot of businesses. If SD-WAN technology is on your radar, you likely want to improve the performance of networks and applications at remote offices. You may have jumped off the SD-WAN adoption cliff already, or are at least researching and considering it. With SD-WAN’s popularity, it has gained a silver bullet quality. It does...
Tags: network performance monitoring, remote office monitoring, SD WAN
Get to Know the Top Collaboration Apps for Remote Users
by
Sharon Ward
on
Team members are not always in the same office, or they may be on the road at customer or supplier sites. Companies are dealing with a shortage of critical skills, so they hire people regardless of their location. Businesses overall are increasing their number of remote offices and locations, taking advantage of modern technology that makes it easier to be...
Tags: collaboration tools, remote locations, SaaS applications
WAN Optimization Lives On—Probably
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Either WAN optimization is dead, or it’s more important than ever. This story argues that WAN optimization reached its peak in the era of limited bandwidth. Now, though, the technology has lost its usefulness because it can’t improve VoIP or video streaming application performance. On the other hand, this analyst says that WAN optimization should be a no-brainer when using...
Tags: ethernet, SD WAN, WAN optimization
IT Charts a New Remote Office Course With SD-WAN
by
Christine Cignoli
on
More healthcare organizations are discovering SD-WAN technology for help managing their many remote locations. It makes a lot of sense—in many ways, healthcare businesses like hospitals and home healthcare facilities are the poster children of the challenges of modern networking. Each remote office or location needs high-performing networks and applications, and most don’t have IT teams on site. We’ve heard...
WAN Challenges Are Overwhelming IT
by
Christine Cignoli
on
A recent survey from Dimensional Research found that nearly all respondents are facing multiple WAN security and management challenges. Network complexity is the underlying challenge for most respondents, which they’re aware of, but not addressing. The top three challenges all involve supporting branch offices: Managing devices, mitigating security risks and deploying new solutions at branch offices. It’s not a surprise,...
Tags: edge computing, hyperscale, SD WAN
“Help, I need somebody!” That refrain from one of the songs that powered the Beatles to long-ago pop music success is the perpetual lament of anyone who’s ever run into a brick wall at work with computer or hardware, WiFi access, or a host of other potentially challenging activities. For years, the IT support help desk has been the answer....
Tags: help desk, IT support, voip
IoT and Globalization Put Networking in Spotlight
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Networking association MEF started the push toward SD-WAN standards recently. It’s a sign of the maturity of the technology, which is becoming a part of more organizations’ network infrastructures. MEF is developing a lifecycle service orchestration framework and open APIs, with the goal of consistency around communicating among SD-WAN components. Several leading SD-WAN vendors are on board. The Open Networking...
Tags: edge computing, IoT, remote office monitoring, SD WAN
Holding Out Hope for SDN? How to Enforce QoS in the Meantime
by
Joe Michalowski
on
For every new technology, there’s that initial excitement that makes you think “this is the innovation that will break the Gartner Hype Cycle.” But time and time again, there’s a gap between innovation hype and practical implementation. There’s no better example of this gap than the case of software-defined networking (SDN). The concept has been around since the mid-1990s, but...
Tags: QoS, remote locations, remote office monitoring, SDN
6 Tips for Better SD-WAN Adoption
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Emerging technologies are making it easier for IT teams to manage the remote offices under their control. SD-WAN deployment is growing quickly, and so are remote locations, which are increasingly a part of many distributed businesses in a whole variety of industries. At its simplest, SD-WAN pairs multiple existing networks and routes their traffic depending on network health or specific...
The Digital Network Revolution Is Here
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Check out this research showing how digital transformation is affecting companies with remote and branch offices. The EMA Research study found that 83% of enterprises are increasing their number of WAN-connected sites, and in 84% of enterprises, the number of network-connected devices is also increasing at remote sites. A majority of businesses surveyed—74%—are also making changes around using the internet...
Tags: remote locations, remote office monitoring, SD WAN, SDN
Can Emerging Network Technologies Solve IT's Problems?
by
Christine Cignoli
on
One of our favorite topics around here is obviously network performance. This take on upgrading network performance looks at the big picture of networking today to see where improvements might happen. Throughput and security have traditionally been the two big considerations in network performance, but others now include policy-based approaches, flexible infrastructure and capacity. The general outlook here is that...
Tags: networking hardware, NFV, SDN
The cloud offers many attractive alternatives for businesses and their IT teams looking for flexibility and quick deployment of all kinds of applications, large and small. But existing budget patterns—with a strong bias toward ownership (capex) rather than consumption-as-needed (opex)—means IT is stuck shopping for tools in an old-school way. Old habits and work styles have left organizations with enlarged...
Tags: capex vs. opex, cloud costs, cloud pricing, IT spending
Legacy Networks Have Some Catching Up to Do
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Are you using multicloud in your enterprise? No? Are you sure about that? This look at multicloud notes that many businesses are actually using multicloud without knowing it, citing an IDC study that 95% of businesses are using multiple public and private clouds. This unknown use of multicloud is a sort of outgrowth of shadow IT, which isn’t so harmless...
Tags: end user experience, IT infrastructure, legacy network, network performance
SD-WAN Won't Push MPLS Out
by
Christine Cignoli
on
It may have seemed for a moment there that MPLS was on its way out as SD-WAN came onto the scene and businesses with remote locations used more public internet. That’s probably not the case, though. A recent Nemertes Research survey found that about 21% of organizations are deploying some kind of SD-WAN technology. Notably, though, they aren’t getting rid...
How Edge Computing Might Benefit Enterprise IT
by
Joe Michalowski
on
“The edge will eat the cloud. And this is perhaps as important as the cloud computing trend ever was.”—Tom Bittman, Vice President and Distinguished Analyst at Gartner Research If you’re one of the many IT pros still finding your footing with cloud computing, this statement from Tom Bittman might sting a little. It sounds like you might be spending time...
Tags: edge computing, latency, remote locations
What Will Office 365 Bots Mean for User Performance?
by
Joe Michalowski
on
Are you ever tired of all the so-called disruptive technologies that business leaders keep asking you to implement? It’s great to see so much innovation that can impact your business—but sometimes you just want the IT infrastructure to remain stable for a little while. So, when you hear Microsoft’s Harry Shum, executive vice president of AI and research, say “We...
Tags: AI, bots, Office 365
Cloud Is a Game-Changer, But Not a Time-Saver
by
Christine Cignoli
on
This week, Cisco announced products built using intent-based networking for the end-to-end network. Intent-based networking takes the decision-making of how a network will do a task away from administrators, who only need to tell the network what needs to be done. This type of network is also more flexible and predictive to respond quickly to changes. Intent-based networking may come...
Recharge, Reset, Reconfigure
by
Christine Cignoli
on
As summertime approaches here on the east coast, we’re dreaming of time away from work to recharge. How much of your daily work in IT can be automated while you’re away from the office? This recent IT Pro piece notes that we all tend toward keeping the status quo, even if it’s clear it’s not working well. IT, still, is...
Tags: cloud pricing, data center, legacy IT
To Cloud Infinity, and Beyond
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Both vendors and cloud users continue to push cloud adoption strategy ever further. This week in Building More Data Centers, Google Cloud Platform announced its third availability zone in its Oregon region. With the new zone, Google Cloud also added new services for users—CloudSQL and regional Managed Instance Groups, which can be used to spread VMs across multiple zones for business...
Tags: cloud applications, hybrid cloud, multicloud
Ask the Right Cloud Questions
by
Christine Cignoli
on
When you’re making a cloud move, ask the right questions before you spend the money. This list is a good rundown of what to ask internally, including business function priorities, which applications to move to the cloud and when, and what type of integrations you might choose. Plus, asking the hard questions before moving apps off-site will lead you to...
Tags: cloud adoption, IT infrastructure, SDN
How to Bring Your Call Center Into the 21st Century
by
Joe Michalowski
on
What’s the end goal of digital transformation? You’re updating business processes and internal applications, but for most business leaders, the ultimate focus is becoming more agile to meet the changing demands of customers. Unfortunately, legacy-laden call centers are often lost in the mix, or are low on the digital transformation priority list. The problem is that call centers are seen...
Tags: call center, cloud applications, legacy IT
Cloud Adoption Is Not One-Size-Fits-All
by
Christine Cignoli
on
It’s always nice to hear the stories about a company’s entire IT infrastructure journey, and what may have changed along the way. These stories of shifting cloud adoption trends and plans are useful for anyone on a similar IT path. For the state of Kansas, private cloud initially seemed like the best fit. Costs quickly grew, though, from an estimated...
Tags: cloud trends, hybrid cloud, multicloud, private cloud
Take Failure Off Your Cloud Migration Checklist
by
Christine Cignoli
on
With cloud computing, you’ve got a lot to think about when picking providers. Check out this cloud migration checklist that’s along the lines of moving to a new house. It’s a good breakdown of the individual steps of a cloud migration. As an IT person in the modern world, you’ll probably be able to add your own opinions to this...
At Gartner, It's About IT Relevance
by
Damian Roskill
on
For the next few days, AppNeta has set up camp here at the Gartner IOSS show. This summit is a place for us to hear about others’ visions for the IT future. We’re surrounded by analysts, speakers and the attendees who are taking on IT challenges every day at work. We know what our AppNeta vision is: Giving IT back...
Balance Cloud and On-Premises Workloads Carefully
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Here’s another cloud adoption survey to add to your market research data, this one conducted late last year by Intel Security. Some new and interesting data points in here are on software-defined data centers: 73% of enterprises surveyed are moving to that model within two years. And while hybrid cloud adoption is growing rapidly, almost half of respondents say they’re...
Tags: cloud adoption, hybrid cloud, on premises applications
Cloud Management Tools Still Elusive
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Google’s Cloud team this week discussed multicloud integration with their own platform and AWS using Google Cloud Endpoints and AWS’ Lambda. The Cloud Endpoints let you develop open APIs, and you can then call those APIs up from Lambda. This may be the way forward for businesses eager to get their multiple public cloud providers integrated. We’re interested in the...
Cloud Operations Can't Be Ignored
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Lots of cloud technology predictions and analysis are still dealing with future spending and planning, but there are plenty of real-world cloud use cases and implementations happening now. One approach, taken by stalwart GE, is to use SaaS applications for non-differentiated uses. For them, that means moving functions like HR, finance, taxes and scheduling to SaaS, while spending their software development...
Tags: cloud management and governance, cloud operations, IT operations
Is Your IT Career Ready for the Cloud?
by
Bree Brouwer
on
The IT industry is undergoing a significant evolution to keep up with cloud application demand. We see this happening as a mindset shift, from traditional IT teams to more well-rounded, cloud-focused job roles. The IT industry has become so cloud-minded that Gartner predicts that by 2020, this cloud shift will impact more than $1 trillion of global IT spending. This...
Tags: cloud computing, cloud management and governance, IT jobs
How to Manage Apps and Make IT Life Easier
by
Christine Cignoli
on
So, were any of you looking for yet another business SaaS app to support? No? Well, your users might have other ideas. Google announced at its industry event this week that it’s splitting the Hangouts app into two: one application for video, and one for chat. That’s aimed at competing with the popular business chat app Slack, of course, recently...
Tags: cloud applications, cloud management and governance, SaaS monitoring
What Should You Learn From the AWS S3 Outage
by
Christine Cignoli
on
So, what did we all take away from this week’s AWS outage? Depends who you ask. Plenty of us in IT think it was a good reminder to consider multicloud and hybrid cloud environments—basically, do not put all your cloud workload eggs in one AWS basket. The S3 storage outage affected about 150,000 websites hosted in Amazon’s US-EAST-1 region data...
Tags: AWS, hybrid cloud, web outages
Bet on the Cloud That's Right for You
by
Christine Cignoli
on
This week’s news brings us further reminders that if you’re betting on cloud, you’re headed in the right direction. The cloud is growing seven times faster than the rest of IT, according to IDC, with a 25% spending increase just from 2016 to 2017. Cloud adoption in the form of SaaS still leads the pack, with an estimated two-thirds of...
Tags: cloud adoption, public cloud
When choosing a cloud provider, you can look at brand recognition, security and storage features and other items. But cloud providers depend on networks just like the rest of us, and they’re not all created or configured equal. In general, for those considering the cloud, it’s important to match up the location of your end users and the cloud location...
Tags: cloud providers, monitoring technology, network performance monitoring
Get Schooled in SaaS
by
Christine Cignoli
on
SaaS use is growing in enterprises all the time, with the ease of consumer apps meeting the full-featured nature of typical business software. Google added new tools earlier this week to G Suite that are designed for enterprise IT. The announced features include additions to security and archiving capabilities, plus more big data analytics for Gmail. As we transition into...
Tags: cloud pricing, cloud skills, SaaS licensing
Even the Cloud Has Its 1%...But the 99% are Forging Ahead Quickly
by
Christine Cignoli
on
For your weekly dose of industry numbers, let’s start with this: Just 1% of cloud survey respondents will use no cloud services at all in the next two years. That’s according to the Interop ITX/InformationWeek survey on the state of cloud computing. We’re curious how even that 1% is managing to avoid the rapid rise of SaaS apps and public...
How to Embrace Multicloud
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Just when you thought you’d heard every cloud-related term out there, here’s a new(ish) one: multicloud. This one, at least, is pretty straightforward. It refers to businesses using more than one public cloud provider at a time. Now that there’s more than one mature public cloud option (sorry, AWS), you can actually take a best-of-breed approach to cloud computing. Multicloud...
Tags: cloud adoption, cloud strategy, multicloud
Are Your End Users Haunted by Ghosts?
by
Joe Michalowski
on
No, that’s not a question for superstitious IT leaders. We’re talking about application performance ghost issues—the bane of IT’s existence. Ghost issues are the ones that come up intermittently to degrade end-user experience, but are often impossible to reproduce, identify and fix. Your IT team might be a great group of problem solvers, but application architectures are getting more complicated,...
Tags: end user experience monitoring, network monitoring, remote location monitoring
IT Jobs of the Future
by
Christine Cignoli
on
This week, Packet Pushers has some excellent guidance around avoiding short-term networking fixes for application issues—or, as they call them, “stupid network tricks.” The way to avoid those tricks, they say, is to get ahead of the problem by involving IT at the outset of every project. Instead of IT being a place to put blame and fight fires, they...
Tags: IT jobs, network monitoring, SD WAN
The App's Eye View of 2017
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Our outlook for the year in technology is pretty rosy. Businesses of all stripes are getting more agile and more cloud-savvy. They’re using SaaS apps and cloud services for all kinds of workloads, discovering new capabilities as cloud technology matures. IT teams are looking at the big picture to help users have better experiences. We hear from customers that they’re...
Tags: IT trends, SaaS monitoring
Business Technology Is Where Innovation Really Happens
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Contrary to popular belief (and the exciting buzz of CES), it’s business technology, not consumer, that really drives innovation, says the Aberdeen Group. They name the PC, IoT and early BlackBerry business use as innovative tools that started in data centers and IT departments before moving into wider consumer use. They see the concept of SDN as the next “boring”...
Baby, It’s Cloudy Outside
by
Christine Cignoli
on
It’s the holiday season, and one IT wish list item may be cloud control and confidence. There’s a whole new crop of companies offering cloud management and governance services to ease the adoption and maintenance of cloud. There are a lot of challenges to getting the best value out of cloud, like security, multi-cloud management and end-to-end visibility. This time of...
Tags: cloud management and governance, performance monitoring
Top Metrics for Measuring End-User Experience in Your Cloud Applications
by
Joe Michalowski
on
Your work doesn’t end after you’ve signed the dotted line of a well-negotiated cloud services SLA. Even after you’ve settled on an SLA with your service provider, it’s your job to make sure you’re getting what you pay for. This is why service-level agreements are coming under fire as they’re applied to cloud application services. Because SLAs set a minimum...
Tags: end user experience monitoring, service level agreement
Go Cloud or Go Home
by
Christine Cignoli
on
‘Tis the season for technology predictions in 2017. This one goes in-depth on the job skills that will be most important in the year ahead. There’s nothing too extreme (we’re not actually hiring robots yet) but mobile and big data jobs, two trends a few years back, are at the bottom of this top ten list. Programmers and help desk...
IT’s Got Money on Its Mind
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Happy Friday! From InformationWeek, we came across this story on the future of IT investment planning. It’s a great look at the shifts in IT roles that are happening as technology shifts take place in the data center and outside of it. The main takeaways here are that cloud services spending is practically guaranteed for IT going forward, and that...
What Goes into a Cloud Services SLA?
by
Joe Michalowski
on
How many cloud services SLAs do you have in place today? As cloud services continue to drive your business, the number will grow and you might become numb to SLA fine print. However, it’s important to ensure each SLA has your best interests in mind. Don’t settle for just any cloud services SLA. Know what should be included in the...
Tags: cloud computing, cloud services SLA, service level agreement
A Truckload of Excitement for IT This Season
by
Christine Cignoli
on
In re:Invent 2016 news this week, Amazon Web Services announced Lightsail, its easy-to-deploy virtual private server service that hides all the underlying complexity from users. Did you think deploying cloud instances was easy already? Now it’s even easier and even more do-it-yourself, and at only $5, may make shadow IT purchases even more prevalent. We’ll look on the bright side,...
Tags: cloud data migration, shadow IT
Slow Business Apps: What’s the Worst That Can Happen?
by
Joe Michalowski
on
The closer the relationship between an application and your revenue, the easier it is to measure the impact of poor performance. This is why, for example, researchers found that an e-commerce site experiences 7% lower conversion rates for just a 1-second delay in page responses. Companies often invest heavily in performance monitoring for their business-to-customer applications. But it’s much more...
Quiz: Do You Know Your Network Acronyms?
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Acronyms rule the IT world, and the networking field is no exception to this. We've collected a few of the acronyms that we come across often in our performance monitoring world. Do you know what they all mean? If you tweet us or leave a comment with your score, our CMO promises to do a pushup for every correct answer. ...
Weekly Packet: Public Cloud, Big Data Rule the Roost
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Watch out for lock-in, and consider a cloud broker. These are some tips on using public cloud that came out of discussions with a group of reps from large enterprises who have been working with the Open Networking User Group. There are some concrete tips on negotiating pricing and ensuring security—all very useful advice now that cloud is here to...
Tags: big data analytics, public cloud, serverless computing
Weekly Packet: Cloudy with a Chance of Innovation
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Cloud adoption just keeps increasing, with more to come, according to this recent IDG cloud survey. They found that the average company has 45% of their IT environment in the cloud, and that by the end of 2017, the average company expects it’ll be closer to 59%. With all those numbers in hand and other signs that cloud computing is...
Weekly Packet: R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find Out What It Means to IT
by
Christine Cignoli
on
This week brought a few great stories about IT gaining more respect as a critical part of business success. First, this Forbes story takes a detailed look at IT jobs and the cloud to delve into how IT’s role is becoming more clear. It’s a reminder that we’re moving past the initial “cloud will take my job” fear that came...
Weekly Packet: Ghosts, Ghouls and Graveyards
by
Christine Cignoli
on
It’s Halloween weekend! Do you have any ghost issues in your IT infrastructure? Those are the ones that are hard or impossible to reproduce, and usually take the most time to find and fix. Performance monitoring will help you sweep those lurkers right out the door, so you won’t be scared to walk the data center aisles alone. IT teams...
Artificial Intelligence Grows, with the Help of Human Intelligence
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Artificial intelligence has dominated many IT headlines this year. One theory on why AI is taking off now is that its predictive capabilities are becoming popular in this data-driven world. It’s getting better and more business-worthy, too. Salesforce recently announced Einstein, an AI addition to its product that promises customer personalization via machine learning. The financial trend is positive, too:...
Tags: artificial intelligence, industry news, monitoring technology
The internet crashed today. It wasn’t the normal WiFi reset, network congestion, single-site outage or even the obscure mouse-ate-the-cable. The east-coast internet was under attack due to a DDoS attack that took down Dyn, a leader in DNS services for much of the east coast of the United States. Dyn’s status page has been kept running to keep the public...
Tags: internet outages, web outages
Weekly Packet: Predictions, Patriots and Phone Addiction
by
Christine Cignoli
on
We’re nearing late October, which means it’s time for… IT conferences and industry predictions! During Gartner’s ITExpo and Symposium this week, analysts forecasted a nearly 3% rise in global IT spending for 2017. That will bring spending to $3.5 trillion, with software and IT services expected to grow the most. That makes sense, as IT organizations grow more distributed and...
Building from scratch is never easy. A good plan, like anyone who has ever built Legos will know, can make it much simpler. Setting up a new remote office can be an exciting time for a business. New environments can breed creativity and bolster productivity if set up correctly. But what if the marketing department can’t access the internet to...
Tags: best practices, end user experience, IT scalability, ITOps, remote locations
Weekly Packet: Sometimes Technology Throws a Curveball
by
Christine Cignoli
on
It was a rough week for Samsung and its combusting phones. This piece breaks down the supply chain issues facing global manufacturers like Samsung. It comes down to visibility—there are so many moving parts in building a product like a smartphone that it can seem nearly impossible to see every step of the process. We know something about visibility in...
Tags: cloud providers, legacy IT
Better Salesforce Performance, Better Business Success
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Salesforce uptime and performance have driven plenty of business success. What today’s users like about Salesforce is that it has a lot of customization capabilities and can integrate with other popular, business-critical apps. It’s possible for a company to connect Salesforce with any number of other tools, including email and marketing automation, financial systems and ERP tools, dashboard creators, cloud...
Tags: application deployment, application performance, salesforce
Weekly Packet: All Cloud, All the Time
by
Christine Cignoli
on
This week, we came across some nice hard numbers on cloud infrastructure spending, based on IDC research. They expect that spending on cloud infrastructure will pull even with spending on traditional IT infrastructure within five years. That’s a pretty amazing shift when we look back over the past decade or so in IT. With all the talk and hype about...
Tags: cloud, cloud infrastructure, cloud trends
Weekly Packet: Nothing Lasts Forever (Especially in Tech)
by
Christine Cignoli
on
This week brought Elon Musk’s announcement about his plans to build a sustainable city on Mars. Specifics are scarce, but we’re hoping Musk has considered the quality of WiFi service on Mars, or those travelers might be quite disappointed when they arrive after a six-month flight. Maybe Google’s new Station tools will help. The details are still under wraps, but...
Weekly Packet: IT Daydreams and Cloud Buzzkills
by
Christine Cignoli
on
We came across a new IT buzzword this week: immutable infrastructure. The concept is that infrastructure components get replaced wholesale—essentially a new build or deployment whenever a change or fix is needed. So, no patching needed! It’s a way to move toward easier infrastructure automation, and cloud computing can allow it room to really develop. Good thing, since adoption of...
Tags: cloud computing, network speed
Weekly Packet: IT Gets Busier, Downtime Gets Pricier
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Welcome to Friday, and may yours be pleasant and relaxed, even in light of this piece of news: IT may need to add User Awareness and Adoption as something to consider along with the rest of its big to-do list, according to a recent Nemertes Research webinar based on its research. The “UAA” acronym refers to the idea of making...
Tags: ITOps, monitoring technology, NPM
The latest in mobile operating systems from Apple—iOS 10—hit virtual update shelves today. What it means for consumers is clear: new features as well as updated core apps like Maps and Messaging. What it means for wireless networks in your office is a different story. The Lowdown on the Update Weighing in at over 1GB, the update will send ripples...
Tags: Apple iOS update, FlowView, network monitoring, network traffic, wifi
Firefighting at Scale
by
Christine Cignoli
on
As many of our customers have discovered, constant firefighting of performance issues is not a sustainable plan for growth. It’s a common predicament, though. In many data centers now, older legacy applications are running some business functions, while newer SaaS and web-based apps are running others. They’re on different networks, with entirely different architectures. But the goals of these old...
Tags: application performance, IT scalability, network performance monitoring
Weekly Packet: Let the Robots Do the Work
by
Christine Cignoli
on
It’s the Friday before Labor Day weekend in the U.S., which is a day to specifically not labor at all. But here’s a fun fact: Labor Day was created not as a day of rest for workers but actually as a day to honor the contributions workers have made to the well-being of the U.S. So give yourself a pat...
Tags: artificial intelligence, cloud computing, hybrid cloud
Weekly Packet: What’s Gonna Work? Teamwork!
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Happy Friday! Today we’re thinking about teamwork, after watching all those soccer players and relay teams kicking butt in the Olympics. I came across a recent IT trends survey, sponsored by Dell, that breaks out the views of IT decision makers vs. business decision makers. The survey results found that the two groups aren’t that different in what they find...
Tags: business and IT goals, legacy, NPM
Improve Mean Time to Happiness
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Modern IT metrics encompass a lot of measurements, from throughput and latency to capacity and error rates. In a complicated technology world, the question of which metrics to track has gotten more complicated too. It’s just one more challenge in a challenging IT environment. And businesses and their IT teams can’t spend all their time tracking every metric. A simplified...
Tags: APM, metrics, monitoring technology
Weekly Packet: Airplanes, Unplugged; Various States of Infrastructure
by
Christine Cignoli
on
This was a big one in the Wide World of Outages this week: Delta Airlines couldn’t get more than 1,500 planes off the ground because of a power outage in Atlanta. Well, that’s what initial reports said, but the Wall Street Journal went into the details about how some critical systems and equipment didn’t switch over to backups after power went...
Tags: cloud, hybrid cloud, industry commentary, outages
Streaming Impacts of Rio 2016 on Enterprise Business
by
Team AppNeta
on
4 Steps to Networking (and Productivity) Gold The Olympics in Rio are in full swing which means the world’s best athletes competing in nail-biting competitions... what’s not to love? For most corporate IT Ops teams it introduces new challenges at work... like your colleagues following their favorite athletes by streaming their favorite events to their corporate laptops over corporate WiFi....
Tags: application performance, Network, network performance, olympics, Rio 2016, saas, Synthetics
All About the Metrics: Part 2, Network Metrics
by
Christine Cignoli
on
The modern IT network encounters a lot of twists and turns on its way to high performance and user satisfaction. The humble network, which for a long time was fairly straightforward, is now a complicated infrastructure component that requires careful management and monitoring. Private and public network topologies are much more diverse these days, so that app delivery takes many...
Tags: monitoring technology, network metrics, NPM
All About the Metrics: Part 1, Application Metrics
by
Christine Cignoli
on
When we talk about today’s technology environments, we’re mostly talking about complexity. In the past decade or so, there have been some big changes in the way IT manages its resources and responsibilities. Along with the changes in technology (virtualization, cloud computing and others), IT now has to answer to line-of-business teams in brand-new ways. End users are savvy tech...
Weekly Packet: Gold-Medal Tech, Your Cloud Shopping List
by
Christine Cignoli
on
I just had to write an Olympic-themed headline, since today is the first day of the 2016 Summer Games! I love the Olympics. It’s so much fun watching athletes do what they’re best at. Plus, they have the extra challenge this year of swimming or boating in polluted, mucky water—so it’s even more impressive for the winners, I suppose. Technology...
Weekly Packet: Post-Brexit Cloud, and Why to Keep Apps On-Premises
by
Christine Cignoli
on
Happy Friday, all, and thanks for voting on the name of this weekly roundup blog post. The big winner was “Weekly Packet,” so let’s get started on volume two. AWS and other cloud adoption could rise in the wake of the Brexit decision over in Europe, as a Forbes contributor reports. I find this fascinating, since strict data regulations had...
Tags: AWS, cloud, on premises applications
Take the Mystery Out of SLAs
by
Christine Cignoli
on
A service-level agreement sounds suspiciously like paperwork, which, to me anyway, sounds either boring or easy to ignore, or both. But service-level agreements (SLAs) can’t be ignored. This particular form of paperwork comes in many flavors, and affects IT in some important ways. Generally, an SLA stands as a reminder and guarantee of what a customer should receive from a...
Tags: metrics,