A survey of more than 400 small, mid and large-sized enterprises has highlighted a fast-growing discrepancy between the capabilities of their network infrastructures and what network administrators need to do their jobs effectively. Approximately 52% admitted that managing application performance, availability and security is a significant problem due to a “disjointed, complex and hard-to-manage” environment.
The survey, conducted by Freeform Dynamics on behalf of security and storage leader, Barracuda Networks, set out to identify the key issues affecting the performance of critical business applications. The findings indicated that many business networks are showing signs of stress when trying to keep up with the demands of the modern workplace.
“Everything is increasing – the traffic, the data, the access points, and the number of users and devices,” said Jeff Hurmuses, are vice president APAC for Barracuda Networks. “The survey results underpin how important it is for companies to consider all of these points in order to scale their network infrastructure.”
Just over one-fifth (21%) said employees connecting remotely are generating very high or high amounts of traffic on the network. Approximately 76% of those surveyed expect the load from employees connecting remotely to be higher or much higher within three years.
Half (50%) of respondents said that growth in home working and/or other forms of remote access is impacting traffic on the corporate network.
The vast majority (84%) cited current or future changes in working patterns as increasing the challenge associated with application access and security.
More than half (52%) of those surveyed admit their network is a disjointed, complex and hard-to-manage environment, which impacts the ability to deliver consistent application performance, availability and security.
Additional findings from the survey indicated that poor or unpredictable application performance is causing a problem, or at least a distraction for almost two-thirds (65%) of those surveyed. Application outages also are impacting businesses, causing disruption in 64% of the businesses surveyed. With predictions that these issues are only set to increase, the respondents did recognize a need for change.