Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 35 | Page 51

CIO opinion CIO OPINION WAN deployments (by 71% and 66% of respondents respectively) and was considered the second most important feature for SD- WAN (with 52% placing it top). Equally, though, despite the increased attack surface, virtualised networks ultimately improve security since they allow policy to be applied network-wide automatically through software. Indeed, when asked about their key drivers for looking at specific network services, security came in the top three for all the technologies mentioned. www.intelligentcio.com It was the number one driver for hybrid WAN (above increased application visibility and reducing overheads). It was number two for SD-WAN (after speed and flexibility) and NFV (after better bandwidth utilisation). And for APM it came in third (after better bandwidth utilisation and speed and flexibility). Conclusion New networking technologies have huge potential to improve performance, boost efficiency and agility, as well as easing visibility and control. We believe organisations should proactively evaluate, run proof of concept trials and build these technologies into their networking roadmap, but they must be clear about how and when to take advantage of them. Getting the right balance of innovation and risk for your business and bearing in mind the approach, skills, services and help available to you is key. And of course, any deployment needs to tie in with your business strategy and requirements, and the demands of Digital Transformation. n INTELLIGENTCIO 51