Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021. Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Three Predictions for More Efficient, Secure and Resilient Networks in 2021 (with Zero Trade-Offs)
By Jeff Smith,
Director of Business Technology Strategy for Nokia's IP and Optical Networks
The year 2020 was one
for the ages. Our personal and business lives have been challenged tremendously
as health, work-from-home, shopping and entertainment (to mention four daily
activities) have changed dramatically - in just a matter of weeks. Our lives depend on
the digital world now more than ever, and that would not have been possible
without high performance, secure and resilient networks.
Network engineering
assumptions around capacity, quality of service, customer experience and
security have all been challenged this year. Network usage, for example, grew
by more than 40% practically overnight and our long-standing assumptions around
upstream (think video conference from your home) versus downstream (consuming
Netflix on your home TV) were thrown out the window. Security attacks also increased
dramatically - with malware infections doubling and Distributed Denial of Service (or DDoS) attack
traffic increasing 40% over pre-pandemic levels, as Nokia Deepfield found in
its latest research.
Despite these new
challenges the networking industry's emphasis going into 2021 continues to focus
on lowering costs, increasing efficiency and pushing for commoditization.
However, prioritizing these alone can often result in trade-offs that may reduce
network flexibility and responsiveness as a whole - something 2020 has shown us
it vitally imperative to keeping our work and personal lives running in the new
year.
So how do we engineer
and operate networks that can simultaneously improve efficiencies, prepare for new
performance requirements and also prioritize the resiliency and security
required in a dramatically changed, fully digital society?
Here are three predictions
we have for how the networking industry will likely tackle this in 2021:
1. Challenging
trade-offs that may bring short-term benefits, while standing in the path of delivering
high performance, resiliency and/or security needed in the future
Innovation, digitalization and adaptability have created a digital
ecosystem of applications and services that demand incredible agility levels in
today's networks. Network engineers require instant intelligence about what is
traversing their networks in the context of their existing footprint and
services. They must respond rapidly to consumer and enterprise demand and consumption
changes while absorbing and protecting the delivery of these digital
applications and services in the face of various security threats.
Trade-offs in network architecture and design limit their options. Past
applications and services were more static; in such an environment, trade-offs
were possible. Today, the compromises you put in place to handle certain
applications or traffic types may be completely overturned when the latest
applications, traffic trends or attacks invalidate your previous assumptions.
In the quest for efficiency and cost-reduction, network service
providers can no longer give in to playing the trade-off game. The next year is
poised to be a critical one, and will fully test the mettle of our all-digital
lives and societies, and also the networks as our digital lifelines. As a
result, we predict that in 2021 the focus will expand from using traditional
approaches to keep the networks running to relying more on deeper knowledge
about networks - particularly how and where network traffic is originating, how
it's being funneled through the network and delivered to end users - in order to
keep the network optimally performing, resilient and secure.
2. Building
security into the network will occur deterministically
As networks evolve from controlled transit (with more predictable
connections between business customers, peering and content partners) to dynamic
transit (where the vast majority of the traffic is off-net, coming from cloud
and application providers), it's time to rethink basic security principles such
as traffic isolation, encryption, attack detection and response.
In the past, relatively static services could be supported by networks
engineered with basic security access control, isolation and pre-determined
attack protection clusters put in place weeks or even months in advance.
However, today's dynamic environments demand protection that is equally
dynamic - which we see as a growing focus in 2021. The days of designing
security using the perimeter of networks alone are gone. In 2021, we see this
being replaced with security at scale: ubiquitous
coverage for the entire network.
With critical applications and data crossing internet connections every
day, end-to-end network encryption for both isolation and privacy protection
will move from being viewed as a ‘nice to have' to a vital component of network
security. As terabit-level attacks coming from multiple entry points (inside or
outside of a network) continue, networks of the future will require rapid
detection abilities using built-in distributed, terabit-level responses in
order to preserve the integrity of network services and applications.
3. Network
intelligence will be viewed as the backbone of the future
In a world where most of the network traffic is coming from cloud
applications, traffic visibility and analysis in the context of a network will become
paramount to enabling highly reliable, responsive, scalable and secure networks
moving forward.
Network engineers always have been (and will continue to be) the
critical success factor for these types of networks. However, current engineering
practices need to evolve in 2021 from static service models to supporting
highly dynamic content and applications.
The new service delivery chain of these critical applications, content
and services is complex and largely lies outside of a service provider's
control. For that reason, measuring performance, reliability and security
across the whole network is a must - and just the start. Moving into the new
year, a broader and more holistic perspective of consumer or enterprise
performance and security is required to provide maximum value to subscribers
and end-users.
New ways of obtaining accurate network intelligence, such as relying on
the network's big data, will allow yesterday's network engineers to become
tomorrow's champions.
In many ways, it's
difficult for anyone to predict what 2021 will hold. However, we feel confident
these shifts will begin to occur in wider-sweeping ways, if for no other reason
than 2020 showed us they must.
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About the Author
Jeff Smith - Director of Business
Technology Strategy for Nokia's IP and Optical Networks
Jeff has over 20 years of experience
leading product and strategy groups driving security and networking
technology. His current role is with Nokia's IP and Optical Networks
(ION) as Director of Business Technology Strategy with focus on driving
security and analytics initiatives. His previous areas of focus include leading
security R&D teams, operating security pen-test teams and leading security
product teams across enterprise and communication service provider customers.