The WAN is the most important link in this whole chain of dependency on the cloud, as the WAN is the weakest link. Therefore, 'X' As A Service is only as good as the ability to get to X.
Businesses and governmental agencies from all vertical markets are migrating from enterprise to the cloud for applications, computing horsepower and flexibility for expansion and contraction which the cloud platforms offer. Recently, the reduction of capital budgets for government and enterprise customers along with the lower costs of the cloud is speeding up cloud adoption. These cloud solutions are everything from mission critical to application development, therefore must allow for all aspects of security, efficiency and scalability. BUT – these applications only produce results if they can be reached with 100% uptime and with adequate capacity. To truly achieve a more bullet proof design, organizations need to first understand the basic elements of a successful and resilient end-to-end IT environment. Once these different elements are understood, then it is a matter of designing, negotiating and implementing them.
As an overview, the below diagram shows the high-level aspect of the problem and these major elements of the end-to-end environment.
Key questions should stay at the forefront during this discussion:
Simply put, cloud computing is the access to technology services including infrastructure, platforms and software over networks.
The three main models of cloud services include:
Examples of these three main models of cloud service are depicted in the diagram below and show the three major cloud models and their reach within the cloud infrastructure categories.
QUESTION: What if you suddenly couldn't access your 'X'aaS because your network isn't redundant? Or it takes a long time to access the things you work with daily?
That's where WAN becomes the most important topic of discussion.
The major cloud providers are heavily resilient for all major aspects which are inherent in a hardened data center, but what about your organization’s connectivity to the cloud? What is your organization’s connectivity beyond the firewalls?
These elements are where WAN becomes the most important topic of discussion as the weakest link in the chain.
No two networks are designed and built the same; one organization might have drastically different network deployment goals from another. The one common aspect of all designs is the three pillars of reliability, security and speed of the connectivity. This is why the technology design professionals must tailor each system to meet the needs of the organization and their goals while meeting the three pillars of all good designs. That said, best in class-networking technologies come with their own limitations, so technology professionals must build networks based on how the equipment operates.
Below is a diagram which clearly diagrams the major types of network topology; all are still seen and used in networks to this day. These network topologies exist not only within an organization but also within the WAN depending on the type of WAN Carrier platform.
Do you know what network topology your organization has? Do you know if it is designed to fit your current needs or is it time to modify the network topology as part of a cloud WAN hardening initiative? Is your organization preparing to expand the cloud aspects beyond its current environment of SaaS, PaaS or IaaS and if so, this is the time to enhance the WAN connectivity due to increased dependency of the cloud connectivity?
The initial steps of having a more bulletproof cloud connectivity is to truly understand what your current WAN is for all sites. Once this is fully vetted and documented, then you can move on to the next step of determining which WAN services best produce the highest levels of continuity, speed and security.
Here is a list of partial elements of WAN redundancy to consider:
This is only a partial list of a full continuity design.
When is the last time you pulled the plug on one of the redundant WAN carriers to see if it truly failed over or continued to operate if in a High Availability design? You would of course do this in a maintenance window but is this done? Do you track the results and correct failures and weaknesses which appear?
On the business side of the WAN connectivity issues, a key set of questions are:
The above is only a high-level outline for an overall effective design needed to keep your cloud connectivity resilient. As your design becomes more and more complete, don’t forget that it should be constantly updated and verified.
Full article published on No Jitter website here: https://www.nojitter.com/enterprise-networking/your-wan-overlooked-and-vital-link-cloud
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