Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 56 | Page 75

t cht lk THE ‘NEW TOMORROW’: HOW ORGANISATIONS CAN FUTURE-PROOF THEIR INFRASTRUCTURE The world of work looks very different now to how it did at the start of the year. In just a few short months, organisations have been forced to completely re-think their workplaces and CIOs have been under huge pressure to ensure their infrastructure is secure and able to cope with the added strain. Vijay Babber, Channel Manager at Gigamon Middle East, tells us how IT leaders can ensure their infrastructure is future proofed for the ‘New Tomorrow’. W What challenges are CIOs at organisations in the region facing when it comes to enabling their infrastructure to meet the requirements of today? COVID-19 has forced CIOs to completely re-think their workplace. Work-from-home (WFH), which used to be a model mostly for remote employees or something granted as an exception, has very quickly become the recommended and preferred approach across many large organisations, for all employees. Agile working policies, particularly in larger organisations, is a trend which has gradually been increasing over the last few years. However, we are definitely behind the curve in the Middle East region on this. Even the larger organisations who were moving towards this approach were not set up for rapid adoption of a work-from-home policy for all employees. This set-up dramatically increases the strain on existing IT systems that were never designed for this scenario. There has been huge pressure to get a sustainable, reliable infrastructure in place as the corporate LAN essentially moves primarily to the WAN. And the situation is made more complex by the economic uncertainty which drives an increased focus on cost containment across every industry. Clearly, this raises many concerns for any “ THERE HAS BEEN HUGE PRESSURE TO GET A SUSTAINABLE, RELIABLE INFRASTRUCTURE IN PLACE AS THE CORPORATE LAN ESSENTIALLY MOVES PRIMARILY TO THE WAN. www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 75