Take the "work" out of your Network

Mauro Rizzi

September 27, 2019

A resilient network, with easy service provisioning, lets IT leaders shift their focus from managing a network, to running a business.

It's no secret that network configuration has traditionally been labor intensive, taking days if not weeks to manually configure an enterprise network, element by element.

Fortunately, however, things are changing. According to Gartner's 2018 Strategic Roadmap for I&O Automation, by 2022, 90% of IT leaders will focus on facilitating transactions, rather than building or running their infrastructure. As service provisioning catches up with the automated world of IT, where it takes only minutes to deploy new applications, enterprises are freeing up network managers' time to concentrate on deploying services that can drive new revenue streams to help pay for digital transformation.

Transform your network

Enterprises need to provide secure, automated wired and wireless connectivity for their digital network users, devices, and Internet of Things (IoT). The key to success is a resilient network that is easy to provision, with the performance and scalability to meet the flexibility that today's businesses demand. With real network automation IT leaders are in the position to shift their focus from building and running infrastructure, as was done in the past, to new business transactions.

As well, simplified management with a single Network Management System (NMS) means that IT managers will no longer have to handle two management systems, with two sets of policies and configuration rules for the LAN and WLAN.

A 21st century network

The Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Service Defined Network is a controllerless, distributed intelligence network that provides resilient connectivity, performance, scalability and easy service provisioning.  The distributed architecture delivers performance and scalability, with high availability that enterprises need now.

The Service Defined Network enables a secure connection automatically from a user, or object, to an authorized application. The ALE intelligent Fabric (iFab) technology automates the deployment of the network and makes moves, adds, and changes easier to reduce the time and effort it takes to maintain and operate the network. Simplifying the network helps ensure a low total cost of ownership (TCO).

With the ALE NMS your get unified service management and network-wide visibility, to help improve your IT efficiency and business agility. It provides a full set of management tools for the converged LAN and WLAN. The single platform let you easily provision, manage, and maintain the network infrastructure with its network elements, alarms, unified access security policies, and virtualization. One network management system for both LAN and WLAN reduces the time and resources to monitor and manage the network.

Advanced network analytics also provide full visibility into wireless, devices and applications, which enable predictive analysis as you plan for the future.

What does a Service Defined Network mean for your business?

Service Defined Network benefits cross many industries. In the healthcare industry a Service Defined Network simplifies and secures how staff, patients, visitors, devices, and objects, connect to a hospital, clinic, or assisted living facility network, and it delivers the performance level that these individuals and groups need.

In the hospitality industry it provides unified access to ensure guests, staff and devices can connect seamlessly across the hotel network. It also ensures that only those who are authorized to access specific applications get the access they need based on their roles.

On an education campus a Service Defined Network simplifies connectivity for students, educators and administrators while ensuring appropriate access to authorized applications and systems.

Service Defined Networks in the transportation industry must be highly resilient and support many different types of mission-critical applications, objects and users, with high levels of security. As passengers move along their journey whether it's by bus, train, or air reliable connectivity is key.

When it comes to government operations, secure, responsive public services, improved emergency response systems, and wireless connectivity are essential to improve citizen’s experiences. Service Defined Networks provide the architecture to deliver the services and applications that governments require and that citizens expect.

What are you waiting for?

A Service Defined Network can be up and running in just a few minutes freeing up time for your IT professionals to work on new strategic initiatives. Network access levels provide the security and QoS that different users, staff, management and devices require.

With a Service Defined Network, the network is simplified, tasks are automated, and IT teams can deliver better service and improve SLA’s, to improve your user's experience. Monitoring network resource usage can also help you proactively address any potential problems that may crop up.

Check out our web page to learn more about how ALE Service Defined Networks can transform your network.