Cybersecurity and Flexibility: How to take care of both?

The pandemic has made significant changes to the public's work model, with mixed-office models（遙距辦公） becoming the norm, with some employees deciding to work in the office or remotely as needed, however, many companies have found that there are many technical constraints in implementing hybrid work, and have increased their investment in digitalization to continue operations. 

Networked operations are the trend of the times

In fact, in addition to the video conferencing that is common in the office, all walks of life are now gradually integrating network devices into the operation process. Logistics warehouses and trucks will use mobile phones to order and sign for goods, schools will use tablets to teach on campus, chain retail stores have information security solution to let customers check out by themselves is also common, not to mention BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) has long been a standard practice for many companies.

Reference: Thousand Eyes, Splunk

Businesses need a comprehensive understanding of the network

A common complaint from users is not that they are too tightly regulated, but that they fail to use certain cloud applications (雲端服務) outside the office or have incomplete functions; it is just that the management of enterprises is afraid to open up some useful functions such as tier iii+ data center to colleagues because of the lack of reliable information and tools. But as web applications such as SaaS as a software become key operational tools, delays are running out; IT managers need to have comprehensive and thorough network information and respond to network problems as quickly as possible. In fact, if a company wants to use the networked and remote office model safely, reliably and efficiently, it still needs to use enterprise-level data center asia pacific solutions.

New office mode network connectivity and security

Prior to the pandemic, digital transformation at the enterprise level was more focused on providing advanced applications to benefit companies. The potential for artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), and edge computing is a core element. 

For many Hong Kong businesses, being able to maintain business and operational resilience is now a new focus of transformation, making sd wan connectivity a top priority for businesses.

According to the Hong Kong Remote Work Cyber Security Application Survey by Hong Kong Internet Registration Management Company Limited (HKIRC), 64% of existing enterprises have adopted the remote working model, an increase of 20% compared with last year. It is estimated that the trend towards remote work patterns will continue even after the pandemic. While 80% of respondents believe that remote work models will become more popular in the future, they hope to witness effective remote work and digital transformation in their companies. However, the survey also shows that advanced threat protection attach great importance to the cybersecurity challenges (32%), and data breach risks (27%), posed by remote work. As you can see, the remote working model has aroused the attention of enterprises to cybersecurity and flexibility. 

SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) ensures that hybrid office environments are secure and resilient.

SASE offers integrated SD-WAN (Software Defined Wide Area Networking) and network security products, covering offices, data centers, cloud services, and remote networks. This technology is designed to improve the visibility and security of enterprise private networks (虛擬私有雲), so it has also attracted the attention of many enterprises. According to international data firm IDG, 71% of enterprises are now actively researching or using SD-WAN in their production processes. In the future, the network will become more important to business operations. 

Nonetheless, the web is a key foundation of today's society and will continue to be an important element of the hybrid office model. Cloud data center brings flexibility, agility, cost-effectiveness, and optimized control of network resources to enterprises, making them more able to choose to use private or public Internet based on data traffic and application categories, and the technology can improve application performance and network resiliency. Companies should consider an end-to-end approach that integrates security and SD-WAN into a broad range of SASE solutions to deliver the connectivity needed in the hybrid work era while improving the scalability, security, and efficient performance of network architectures that can operate even when data traffic suddenly changes. 

Reference: Manage Engine, Fortinet

Challenges of the new era

In addition to network challenges, long deployment times and insufficient human resources are also enterprise cloud computing  IT challenges that enterprises must face today. During the inter-epidemic period, there were many shortages of resources and materials. The recent global semiconductor shortage has led to an outage in the supply of hardware equipment, extending the deployment time of IT infrastructure. IT human resources are also facing resource threats, and many companies have had to freeze job recruitment and even cut off manpower due to the epidemic, which has increased the idc data center. 

To overcome these challenges, adopting SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network) is an effective solution. SD-WAN provides enterprises with a secure private network with high availability, flexibility, and high performance. At the same time, it supports multi-party secure access and can be expanded with the scale of the business. It not only improves WAN applications and path control, but also easily changes the network configuration, simplifies network equipment, and minimizes management costs. It can be seen that SD-WAN is an important element for enterprises to enhance business development and accelerate digital transformation. 

Reference: Zdnet, Techtarget