The more virtually interconnected we are, the less physically associated we become. Computers, the Internet, and mobile networks have all conspired to regress individuals back toward their nomadic leanings. We're wandering again, and personal productivity is driving business today. But the key challenge is reconciling our individual roaming with working together to meet corporate goals.
Corporate power is no longer quantified by the strength of labour and factories, but by the responsiveness and application of knowledge. This shift is influencing everything from how we think about company structure and the definition of a workforce to the underlying systems, processes and technologies that are required to facilitate both our individual and collective productivity.
Add to the mix that enterprises are consolidating/centralising applications to save money and increase control at the same time as they seek greater mobility, and these strategies seem incompatible. Unfortunately, as costs go down network performance tends to go down with it. Even though your road warriors are tasting the constant new breed of exciting handhelds, the real challenge for improving enterprise mobility lies all the way back at the data centre. The good news is that the reasons that any IT organisation would consider consolidation are exactly the same reasons that they would consider virtualisation.
The dominance of the LAN is being usurped by the WAN to deliver data, applications and information to our mobile workforce - anywhere, anytime. The nomad generation of technology warriors is coming. But do we have the infrastructure to support them if everything is coming over the poor old WAN? These are small and fragile links and without smart approaches to maximise capacity, mobilisation may prove a burdensome folly to some organisations unable to capitalise on its compelling value. Often, whilst performance may be fine at the HQ, all those outside of those four walls can experience high latency and slow performance - resulting in decreased worker productivity and serious disgruntled employee syndrome. It's not such a straight forward case of how hand/lap/palm held devices are aiding enterprise mobility, but with IT becoming centralised, the challenge now is to optimise the WAN and its applications for mobility - taking things right back to the data centre.
Catering for neo-nomads doesn't just influence productivity. There are six other key drivers for the modern enterprise: Cost Reduction, Simplicity, Continuity, Globalisation, Consolidation, and Regulatory Compliance.
Expand Networks, is a leading provider of 'virtual proximity' solutions. It helps organisations simplify their IT infrastructure while delivering remote offices with fast, reliable and secure access to networked applications. Intercept IT has recently joined their Compass Partner programme to enhance application and end user performance and customer support.
Expand Networks address the nomadic problem head on, specialising in application acceleration that provides exceptional performance to distributed remote environments - improving response times for web services and business applications running over HTTP. This WAN-Out capability provides remote users with uninterrupted access to the files and applications they were working on, wherever they are.
Management of people and the resources that support them is now a dynamic practice, rather than a scientific one. Infrastructures as well as management approaches must be both permanent and flexible, and inclusive of change rather as a reaction to new circumstances.
Now who cares if you are in the office, because wherever it is, you can be sure you'll be able to take it with you and work without missing a single call, email, document or meeting – bringing the company goals back in focus.
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