Opinion: It’s time to level
up the network for the
hybrid workforce
“Enterprises are deploying a mix of technologies for secure remote
access, including VPN, ZTNA, SD-WAN and SASE — on average
respondents are using 2.3 different solutions, but…”
The new workplace is everywhere, but IT departments are struggling to
provide the same experience to users working from home or on the
road that their office-bound colleagues enjoy, writes Prakash Mana,
CEO, Cloudbrink.
That might not be a big deal if we were having this conversation in
2019, when a minority of the white-collar workforce worked
occasionally from home or on the road. But despite a handful of well
publicized back to work edicts from big companies, hybrid working is
here to stay.
According to Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) research
commissioned by Cloudbrink, 42% of the workforce works out of the
office for at least two days a week — a figure expected to reach 49% by
2025 — and 94% of companies have permanently increased the
numbers of staff working remotely since 2020.
Yet the EMA survey of 354 IT professionals found multiple challenges
for enterprises in adapting their networks to the needs of the hybrid
workforce. We’re talking about facilities office workers take for
granted: fast response times and file transfers, high-quality audio and
video, stable and reliable network connections.
The impact of a substandard IT experience shouldn’t be
underestimated. It can lead to frustration and low morale.
It also affects productivity. During the pandemic a major media
company found that software developers working remotely were only
able to manage one or two code check-ins each day, compared to four
or five by teams able to work in the office. The issue threatened the
deadline for delivering a new product and was serious enough that the
company even considered turning off security on the remote
developers’ connections.
The company — a global 500 enterprise — ran tests using its existing
SD-WAN, VPN and ZTNA solutions but found none of them able to
address the remote developer use case. They were secure but not fast
enough.
Hybrid working network solutions are failing
Trade-offs between security and performance are common and the
EMA research suggests that IT departments have come to accept them
as inevitable.
Shamus McGillicuddy, research director, EMA, says: “The research
suggests that most people in IT still believe they must choose between
a secure solution and a productive one. 46% admitted they prioritize
security over performance while only 34% try to optimize both.
“This is no surprise when you look at who’s calling the shots: the
security team tends to lead hybrid work deployments because security
remains the number one priority for the enterprise. The problem is
compounded by poor collaboration between network and security
between teams, but the bigger problem is that organizations struggle to
find technology that can deliver a solution that balances security and
productivity.”
Tackling a world designed for offices and DCs
The fundamental problem faced by all networking vendors is that their
products were designed for a world of data centers and office-based
workers. An estimated $37 billion has been invested in centralized
architecture. If you were designing networks for the shape of the new
world, they would look very different with the networking and security
stacks at the edge of the network, where the users are.
Hybrid work raises a number of operational issues, including:
The number of users working remotely has multiplied but the size
of networking teams has barely increased, if at all
IT no longer always controls how users are connecting to enterprise
networks creating multiple security and performance issues
Hardware rollouts designed to overcome connectivity problems at
remote locations increase short term costs and add to the long-term
support burden — 72% of organizations taking part in the EMA
survey have tried deploying hardware to the homes of remote users
It takes longer to resolve technical problems for remote users —
51% report increased lead times to repair as a result of new working
patterns
While the number of headaches for the IT department have increased,
it’s the users who feel most of the pain.
Enterprises are deploying a mix of technologies for secure remote
access, including VPN, ZTNA, SD-WAN and SASE — on average
respondents are using 2.3 different solutions. Though they all have
their pros and cons, the absence of a clear winner tells its own story.
For example, the most common solution, used by 61% is VPN but far
fewer respondents (46%) regard VPN as the best solution.
Throwing VPN bandwidth at the problem ignores the fact that many
performance issues occur in the last mile — the final connection
between the user’s device and the network infrastructure. The most
common issues are caused by poor home wi-fi set-ups and low-quality
consumer-grade broadband connections. IT departments have poor
visibility of these access and connectivity issues and little ability to
influence and control them.
Networks have historically been designed to protect the core network
at the expense of the edge. It’s analogous to building road systems that
ensure the smooth running of motorway traffic by allowing traffic to
build up on the on-ramps and rural roads.
Packet loss is a major cause of performance issues and helps explain
why consumer broadband almost never delivers advertised
throughput.
According to research by the US Department of Energy, as little as
0.5% packet loss can reduce effective bandwidth by 95%, slowing file
transfers and degrading audio and video applications. While packet
loss can’t be eliminated it can be mitigated with pre-emptive and
accelerated packet recovery techniques.
Another major factor in performance is the distance between remote
users and the applications they need to access. 83% of organizations
have extended the cloud edge, moving applications closer to remote
users to reduce latency and improve experience.
Getting the benefit of proximity to the applications depends on the
availability of ultra-low latency points of presence (PoPs). For example,
Cloudbrink currently deploys more than 600 of these PoPs, known as
FAST Edges, enabling <5ms latency. Unlike physical PoPs, FAST Edges
can be deployed instantly through partnerships with cloud providers
and telcos with virtually no upper limit on numbers.
Secure remote access options — pros and cons
Forty-two percent of IT organizations are using a secure access
service edge (SASE) solution for remote access. SASE combines
multiple connectivity and cloud-based security technologies. The
technology can be complex to implement, and the cloud-based
security components can add latency to a remote connection.
Forty-two percent of organizations use secure direct access to a
public cloud. This connectivity option is not applicable to assets
hosted in a private data center, and it’s also siloed to an individual
cloud provider. Multi-cloud enterprises will find this option adds
too much complexity. It also does nothing for user experience.
Zero trust network access (ZTNA), which 34% of organizations use,
offers effective, granular access policies and controls, but the
technology also relies on cloud-based gateways that can introduce
latency. ZTNA also lacks the ability to optimise user experience.
More than 20% use SD-WAN solutions for remote connectivity.
These solutions offer security and performance, but they’re
designed for connecting branch offices. They usually rely on
hardware at the user’s location, which can be expensive and
difficult to manage at scale.
The EMA report identified four priorities driving CIO’s hybrid
workplace strategies: employee productivity (45%), security (42%),
employee satisfaction (39%) and operational overhead (33%).
It noted that while many current solutions can address the security
requirements, many fall short of the requirements for performance and
user experience.
IT departments made heroic efforts to adapt their networks for hybrid
working during the pandemic.
The task ahead is to ensure parity of experience for staff regardless of
their location — or risk creating an underclass of hybrid workers with
low job satisfaction and suboptimal productivity.
Prakash Mana is the CEO and founder of Cloudbrink, which provides
high-performance secure application access as a service. He held
previous leadership roles at Pulse Secure and Citrix.
