Controlling Application Access

A network security and QoS checkpoint

The pressure is growing and it’s hard to keep up

It will probably not come as a surprise to many people that the majority of participants in our study are either experiencing or anticipating an increased load on systems as a result of core business growth and the increased use of technology and information within the business (Figure 1).

Beyond these fundamentals, we can also see the impact of changing access patterns. This not only includes remote and mobile access by employees as a result of trends in home working, mobility and BYOD, but also the additional load arising from systems being opened up to the outside world.

Security is also becoming more challenging as internal and external users access the corporate infrastructure in new and different ways, and data becomes fragmented across departmental and workgroup systems, laptops and mobile devices, and various forms of cloud storage (Figure 2).

As we can see, even the adoption of something as well-accepted as server virtualisation frequently has security implications, leading to a broad range of concerns and distractions (Figure 3).

With all this going on, it’s understandable that many are finding it difficult to keep up, resulting in performance, availability and security problems that often have a direct impact on the business (Figure 4).

Things are likely to get even more challenging

When IT professionals are asked to compare activity today with what’s likely to unfold over the next three years, responses suggest that the level of pressure is only going to increase. As of today, most of the load on systems is typically from employees working in fixed office locations, but looking to the future, growth is anticipated across all forms of internal and external access (Figure 5).

On the bottom half of this chart, the application perspective is consistent with the anticipated changes in access. Additional demands stemming from the use of more advanced communications systems, e.g. web conferencing, social networks, interactive video, and so on, will add to the load already associated with more traditional solutions. Layered on this will be even more traffic associated with externally facing web applications accessed by customers, partners and suppliers.

Turning to security, the fallout from the ongoing access trends in the form of ‘friendly fire’ from within the workforce is as we would expect and as has always been the case. Though as business becomes increasingly connected the growth in external threats, including from national government agencies, is creating more concern for many (Figure 6).