Advantages of Cloud Networking
You have heard plenty about the cloud over the years. It went from being a vague mystery to a modern expectation. Most apps these days include cloud support, and we all plan around cloud resources on a regular basis.
What you might not have heard is that cloud technology is expanding and providing new opportunities beyond accessing software and applications. There are things like cloud networking that provide a whole new way to approach digital communication.
What Is Cloud Networking?
Cloud networking is a way of offloading networking management and resources to the cloud. While it has factors in common with cloud computing, it is sometimes best understood by distinguishing cloud networking from cloud computing.
With cloud computing, off-site resources are used to provide internet-based access to applications.
Meanwhile, cloud networking uses off-site resources to manage network assets, including assets that are locally present. You can’t replace local networking devices, cables, and infrastructure with digital cloud resources. They have to be physically present, so cloud networking really focuses on network management more than network design.
If cloud computing is about access to applications, then cloud networking is about how the applications run.
What Does It Do for You?
The simple fact is that offloading some of your networking responsibilities to a cloud provider comes with powerful advantages. It can save time and money while improving reliability, security, and scalability.
Security
Starting with security, cloud networking puts network management behind professionally secured cloud resources. This can dramatically lower the risk of direct attacks on your network and local assets.
Cloud networking also ensures that your networking controls are always protected by the most up-to-date security software and protocols. You’re essentially hiring the cloud networking provider to guarantee certain levels of network security within your organization.
Reliability
One of the most interesting aspects of cloud networking is how it hybridizes your network. By putting network management on the cloud, you create different methods of controlling and updating your network.
As an example, if network controllers need an update, some of that can run through the cloud, allowing you to update your systems without downtime. Essentially, the cloud can run virtual tools that maintain your current working environment while a separate virtual environment loads the new update. Once it is done, your management system can switch to the updated environment with no downtime.
Using cloud techniques and resources, many aspects of network reliability become more robust, and you can manage a lot of your maintenance without having to introduce downtime that would otherwise be present.
Cost-Efficiency
Any time you invest in third-party resources, you are lowering the burden on your own in-house IT. With cloud networking, putting network management in the cloud frees your IT staff from a large number of labor-intensive tasks.
As a result, the regular cloud fees are predictable and easy to budget, and they allow you to leverage your existing IT resources much more effectively. As long as you plan accordingly, you can save money on IT spending while improving productivity in that branch of your business.
Scale
Businesses always have to consider scale, especially when it comes to technology. You want the freedom to grow. But as you grow, IT costs will skyrocket, and you will have to rethink networking and many other aspects of technology in your business.
Cloud computing helps with this because you don’t have to purchase nearly as much additional hardware and software as the business grows.
Cloud networking provides similar advantages. Your network management is already built at scale. Your cloud networking resources can handle considerably more demand than you are currently placing on them.
As a result, scaling up your networking is easier and cheaper when you invest in cloud networking, especially if you invest early.
Additional Learning Center Resources