One of the questions we’re frequently asked by clients considering their WAN architecture is whether to use SD-WAN (Software-Defined WAN) rather than MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching)? The answer is: “it depends”.
If your organisation is using a mix of cloud services from different providers, how are you going to ensure delivery of the agreed service levels? Human nature being what it is, if a problem occurs, each supplier will typically claim that “it’s not my fault”, so you need a quick, effective way of finding out exactly where the problem lies. Ideally this should use information independent of that provided by the cloud supplier.
We’re all now familiar with the benefits of cloud computing: limitless capacity, almost total flexibility and increased efficiency, as well as transferring costs from Capex to Opex.
Most organisations moving services to cloud over the next few years will find themselves managing a hybrid solution - a mix of in-house, third party and public cloud services. This means they’ll need to find an integrated way to manage their cloud portfolio, because every supplier will claim ‘it’s not my fault” when a problem arises, and they could waste a good deal of time tracking down the culprit.
With the online portal which handles the majority of its consent and regulatory activities becoming increasingly unresponsive, the Oil and Gas Authority needed a new secure hosting environment. After a competitive tender it chose managed cloud provider Fordway, which now hosts the portal and provides back-up and DR using its own equipment in two UK data centres. Fordway also set up and hosts a remote desktop environment to run business-critical applications which could not be supported internally and enables new applications to be added rapidly to meet user demands.
With last week’s Petya/NotPetya malware coming so soon after the Wannacry infection which affected more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries, every organisation needs to assess their ability to cope with ransomware. That means considering a range of factors, from your patching regime to your back-up and disaster recovery provision. It only takes one user to accidentally click on an infected attachment and you could find yourself testing your DR plan!
