With games set to take place throughout the day, many followers will be watching the event on tablets, phones and PCs in the office. However, while being able to stream content is great for users, businesses worldwide may find themselves suffering from some serious application and network performance problems, as massive sporting events consume a lot of bandwidth and put high amounts of pressure on the network.
 
With apps, data and users scattered across branch offices and other remote locations, optimising and delivering great application performance is becoming increasingly difficult. Networks are becoming more complex than ever before, with a variety of applications operating on a variety of platforms, and needing a variety of intelligent and application-centric network paths to operate at the same time.
 
During the 2014 FIFA World Cup, there was a particular Oil and Gas company whose IT team struggled to complete Windows updates and patches out to servers and workstations located on their oil rigs. When IT looked in to what might be causing these delays, they discovered that in addition to those watching the streamed content on the TV in the recreational area, staff were using the company’s WAN link – a costly piece of infrastructure, consisting of limited bandwidth and high latency – to watch the matches. As a result, they were causing a data traffic bottleneck, impeding critical business operations. How can companies like this one ensure video streaming is not going to disrupt work, while allowing employees to enjoy the championship?
 
Data traffic bottlenecks can be avoided by establishing end-to-end visibility into application performance across the entire network. The value of a good visibility tool in this scenario is not just to proactively detect the anomalies in network usage at kick-off time. It also allows businesses to foresee what applications, users and workstations are about to be affected due to bandwidth capacity.
 
This visibility also brings a desire to control and manage the network infrastructure in a meaningful way, which is where the power of SD-WAN and Application Defined Networking comes to the rescue.
 
To put it simply, SD-WAN allows businesses to control their network from a single, easy-to-use, intuitive command centre. Knowing what to change, adjust and orchestrate then becomes a simple task, so businesses can make on-the-fly adjustments to network performance and application delivery. Additionally, an app-centric SD-WAN will automatically identify the applications in the organisation’s network and group them into logical categories based on business criticality, and even apply network-service policies to those categories based on built-in best practices.
 
Going back to the oil rig example, this enables sufficient bandwidth to stream the next round of soccer in the recreational lounge, without compromising the business applications that are vital for production operations.
 
These benefits offer IT – and the wider business – a broad range of possibilities. All in all, SD-WAN makes networks more flexible and agile than ever, keeping the right applications available when and where they should be. Ultimately, this means business needs can be met efficiently and effectively, while everyone enjoys the game.