We discuss the following topics in this blog:
- What is a digitally mature company
- Automating the Existing Infrastructure
- Build New Infrastructure from Scratch
In addition to these topics, we shall also be answering the following FAQs:
- What is an Optical Fibre Cable?
- What is WiFi?
Overview
Contents
Finely tuned coordinated technologies coupled with digital transformation can offer long-term sustenance to any organization. Any infrastructure that enables active transformation effectively should be flexible, scalable, and increasingly responsive. This is vital for any enterprise if they want to be able to adapt and react in real-time to the rapidly evolving business demands to prevent any disruption or negative impact on the security and performance of the business. On the way to becoming digitally transformed organizations, the successful ones will go through digital maturity.
What Truly Defines a Digitally Mature Company?
A digitally mature company is one that enjoys an array of benefits that arise as a result of their digital transformations leading to an improved bottom line and going beyond the profitability of the enterprise. Technological and digital advancements lead to enhanced product quality and improved customer satisfaction, which contributes directly to their revenues. But a digitally mature enterprise focuses on a better tomorrow by reducing the adverse environmental impact and focusing on improving workforce diversity as a part of their broader social responsibility.
As per Deloitte’s newest survey about digital transformation[, a digitally mature enterprise is an outperformer and prominently ahead of key industry financial metrics averages as well as business impact indicators. The survey further highlights seven digital pivots that fuel an organization’s digital maturity levels.
While an enterprise is undergoing the process of digital transformation it becomes cumbersome & time-consuming to integrate assets, existing infrastructure, and capabilities. Digital and network maturity requires the right guidance, correct support structure, and coordination to merge the existing digital pivots with a unified network. Automation is the first step towards an agile and secure foundation which will form the base to further build the assets and capabilities on. Automation will bridge the gap from traditional and monumental systems to digital and modern infrastructure. There are two ways to go about automation.
How to Automate the Existing Infrastructure?
In order to revamp the organization digitally, decommissioning the existing technology and launching modern infrastructure is not an easy process. Legacy systems bring with them a lot of technical debt, multiple ageing devices, outdated software, cumbersome configurations, and multiple deployments. In order to achieve digital maturity, multiple capabilities need to be aligned, stressing the need for a unified network, and to achieve that support and maintenance become ongoing. This increased complexity related to technical debt and old-school systems slows down the network maturity, availability, agility, and scalability while accumulating costs.
Most of the networking projects are not completely new projects from scratch, instead, they require that the existing network gets updated to a unified network. Since the process of automation and modernization invariably have to take into account the legacy technology, companies need to take into consideration agility, processes, and compliance before putting the automation rollout into action.
The most digitally mature organizations have achieved unified networks by deploying scalable processes that adjust according to new tools and changing business requirements. These processes can further support both virtual as well as physical infrastructure, on-cloud and on-premise.
Configuration agility enables enterprises to automate and arrange vendor devices and network domains at an organizational scale to provide unified management. Just like processes and agility need to be included while achieving digital maturity, similarly, unique compliance and governance must also be factored in. Only if the policies adhere to internal and external environments can one achieve a tangible ROI from reliable and secure network changes.
Build New Infrastructure from Scratch
If automation is not done, security threats and operational incompetence will hamper digital maturity. However, if you need to deliver immediate value, you may not have time to revamp the entire organization, and then it is imperative to build a new unified network with components that are absolutely new to the enterprise.
When you select the greenfield deployment option, that is, you decide to integrate new network components, you need to acknowledge the constraints of the existing digital network and work around it in the best way that facilitates the integration of new technology. This comprises a complete range of network devices, LANs, digital WANs, and data centres that encompass multi-cloud, multi-vendor, and multi-domain environments. Apart from this, there are also the modern domains of unified networks such as SD-WANs and additional API-enabled management systems and network resources.
When these technologies are deployed, it frees human involvement from adjustment, maintenance, and operation of the technologies. This advanced unified network maturity helps alleviate human error and enables businesses to adopt enterprise mobility applications and seamlessly transition into hybrid organizations with on-campus as well as remote workforces that can perform uninterrupted. Multi-domain and multiple-vendor capabilities are supported by automated technology and this helps businesses to ramp up to include more use-cases & quickly respond to the evolving business demands.
Apart from automated and unified networks, organizations that are seeking digital maturity should adopt cloud-first strategies that back up the agility and scalability of modern infrastructure. This can bring down costs and change the entire network’s need patterns.
Safeguard your Tomorrow
As organizations adopt cloud technology, automation can unify the entire network. Intelligent automation can connect the cloud and software embedded infrastructure with the legacy and on-premise mechanisms. When the offline and online environments are automated any technology change can be seamlessly implemented across the IT landscape.
However, when you converge security, the entire technology stack, and the network, the security may get compromised. With modernization, comes the threat of cyber-attacks and hacks. In order to ensure a secure digital maturity, it is imperative to secure the sole component that reinforces the entire IT infrastructure – the Network.
Technology that considers the network as code empowers the required
agility for digital maturity and modernization, thereby enforcing control for
continuous security. Apart from operational efficiency and financial gains,
digital maturity also equips enterprises to become socially responsible
entities. The investments made today in achieving digital maturity by creating unified
networks and attaining network maturity by integrating crucial digital assets
and technologies will prepare the companies well to face any adversity in the
future.
FAQs
What is an Optical Fibre Cable?
An optical fibre cable is a cable type that has a few to hundreds of optical fibres bundled together within a protective plastic coating. They help carry digital data in the form of light pulses across large distances at faster speeds. For this, they need to be installed or deployed either underground or aerially. Standalone fibres cannot be buried or hanged so fibres are bunched together as cables for the transmission of data.
This is done to protect the fibre from stress, moisture, temperature changes and other externalities. There are three main components of a optical fibre cable, core (It carries the light and is made of pure silicon dioxide (SiO2) with dopants such as germania, phosphorous pentoxide, or alumina to raise the refractive index; Typical glass cores range from as small as 3.7um up to 200um), Cladding (Cladding surrounds the core and has a lower refractive index than the core, it is also made from the same material as the core; 1% refractive index difference is maintained between the core and cladding; Two commonly used diameters are 125µm and 140µm) and Coating (Protective layer that absorbs shocks, physical damage and moisture; The outside diameter of the coating is typically either 250µm or 500µm; Commonly used material for coatings are acrylate,Silicone, carbon, and polyimide).
An optical fibre cable is made up of the following components: Optical fibres – ranging from one to many. Buffer tubes (with different settings), for protection and cushioning of the fibre. Water protection in the tubes – wet or dry. A central strength member (CSM) is the backbone of all cables. Armoured tapes for stranding to bunch the buffer tubes and strength members together. Sheathing or final covering to provide further protection.
The five main reasons that make this technology innovation disruptive are fast communication speed, infinite bandwidth & capacity, low interference, high tensile strength and secure communication. The major usescases of optical fibre cables include intenet connectivity, computer networking, surgery & dentistry, automotive industry, telephony, lighting & decorations, mechanical inspections, cable television, military applications and space.
What is WiFi?
Put simply, WiFi is a technology that uses radio waves to create a wireless network through which devices like mobile phones, computers, printers, etc., connect to the internet. A wireless router is needed to establish a WiFi hotspot that people in its vicinity may use to access internet services. You’re sure to have encountered such a WiFi hotspot in houses, offices, restaurants, etc.
To get a little more technical, WiFi works by enabling a Wireless Local Area Network or WLAN that allows devices connected to it to exchange signals with the internet via a router. The frequencies of these signals are either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bandwidths. These frequencies are much higher than those transmitted to or by radios, mobile phones, and televisions since WiFi signals need to carry significantly higher amounts of data. The networking standards are variants of 802.11, of which there are several (802.11a, 802.11b, 801.11g, etc.).