Vendor Landscape: Enterprise Wired and Wireless LAN

• The number of devices the network has to support is growing geometrically and the future says most of them won’t have humans in front of them.
• Networking infrastructure has one of the longest refresh lifecycles in IT – you have to make sure your vendor supports you now and will be adaptable in the future.
• When all the vendors provide all the functionality you think you need, how do you decide between them?

Our Advice

Critical Insight

• Unified management and application visibility is a must. It is no longer enough to just be able to see network assets and traffic from a central console – one needs to be able to see into that traffic in order to manage it properly.
• The Internet of Things (IoT) will demand more of your network than you think. IoT is the biggest thing to come along in network endpoint innovation. This potential for exponential growth will radically change the way you architect your network, from the frequencies you choose for Wi-Fi, to security and access, to where you locate your compute resources.
• Software-defined networking (SDN) is here to stay. The only way to survive the pace of change expected of the modern network will be through the automation and orchestration tools afforded by SDN.

Impact and Result

• Commoditization of the network access layer will continue as advanced features are delivered through programmable APIs on merchant silicon.
• Network engineers will be expected to work more closely with applications and development staff as increased visibility into the traffic allows better troubleshooting.
• Picking the right network vendor will deliver the basic features you need now and, more importantly, prepare you for the advanced features you’ll need tomorrow.