Published:
February 14 2012, 08:40 AM
|
no comments
by
Bill Talbot
The network is a critical, but often overlooked, component to optimize in order to take advantage of cloud computing. Without a highly functioning and adaptable network, the promised benefits of cloud computing such as greater agility and increased efficiency are rendered moot, since your users can't access the cloud services they need to do their jobs. However, as you move toward adopting cloud computing models, it's probably becoming painfully apparent that the old ways of managing the network don't always cut it in this new era of virtualization and cloud.
Virtualization and cloud computing are changing the way IT serves the business, and the network needs to change, as well. It needs become more flexible, more mobile, more dynamic, and most importantly, more automated.
Top 5 Steps to Take to Cloud-Enable Your Network
CA Technologies and Infoblox have partnered to deliver market-leading network automation solutions that can help both speed and ease the transition of optimizing your network to take full advantage of cloud computing. We believe there are five key steps to take, which equate to five areas of automation, in order to truly cloud-enable your network:
1. Automate DNS, DHCP and IP address management to improve the availability and scalability of network services;
2. Automate vLAN and vSwitch provisioning and management to better manage the complexity placed on the network by virtualization and cloud computing;
3. Automate routine, error-prone network operations such as resetting passwords or pushing patches in order to reduce the burden on your network staff;
4. Automate network problem identification and remediation in order to reduce risk of network outages and mean-time-to-repair (MTTR); and
5. Automate policy enforcement and reporting to minimize potential non-compliance penalties.
If you are interested in learning more about the steps you can take to cloud-enable your network, please join CA Technologies and Infoblox at one of our upcoming seminars:
For additional information about CA Network Automation and other CA Unified Automation solutions, visit http://www.ca.com/us/unified-automation.aspx or follow us on Twitter @CAvirtualAuto.