Meeting the Demands on Enterprise Networks

The demands on enterprise networks have never been greater. More and more applications are moving to the cloud, connected endpoints are increasing exponentially, and distributed workforces are demanding secure access and optimal performance wherever they go.

A northeastern city had developed an initiative to provide free, public WiFi in a downtown, outdoor area. The city had invested a great deal of money into revitalizing the area, and improving the wireless infrastructure was part of the mayor’s vision for creating a 21st century, connected city that would attract tech-savvy young professionals and leading conferences to the area. Municipal wireless would also add value for residents of the city, particularly lower-income residents who lacked access to internet in their homes.

As a business, the way that you connect and communicate both internally and with customers is key to your success. Providing a seamless user experience is often the first step to building the relationships that matter, which means that your business must be underpinned by a strong network that fosters the development of these connections.

ConvergeOne recently announced the availability of ConvergeOne Secure Connect, our new software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) managed services offer. In a nutshell, Secure Connect is a subscription-based, fully-managed SD-WAN that connects our customers’ networks to ConvergeOne Cloud Experience (C1CX) collaboration solutions. I know what you may be thinking: What is SD-WAN? It’s one of those terms that we’ve all heard of before, but few know what it really is, and why it’s a hot topic. Let’s dive a little deeper into SD-WAN and explore why Secure Connect is such a cool offer.

When working with various customers on their wireless networks, I am often asked about the broadcasting of Service Set Identifiers (SSIDs) – or the name of the Wi-Fi network – as a security risk. At one time, broadcasting of SSIDs was seen as a security issue, and therefore almost everyone disabled broadcasting. Since that time, we have grown as an industry in our understanding of this practice to the point where it is generally considered best practice to broadcast SSIDs. As an example, PCI DSS v1.2 removed the requirement for SSIDs to be non-broadcast in order to be PCI compliant.

Have you reached the point where you need to start re-architecting tried and true WAN services like MPLS or point-to-point Metro Ethernet? My guess is yes. In many cases, the branch and WAN can no longer keep up. As a result, many organizations are suffering from: