Cloud Seen as a Savior for Network Concerns

By Rory J. Thompson
Web Editor

Running a network in IT has always been a challenge, and now with the rise of hackers and incoming malware threats, it’s becoming an even bigger nightmare. But there is one solution that more and more managers are turning to: The Cloud.

As reported in Computerworld, cloud computing is being seen as a virtual lifesaver.

“Users are counting on fast, secure access more than ever, even as networks get more complex and threats more dangerous,” said Computerworld’s Stephen Lawson. “Often, there’s a lot of data available about the state of a network and its performance, but more data by itself can't solve a problem. So startups are turning to the growing power of the cloud for answers.”

Lawson tells of Silicon Valley company Nysana, which came out earlier this week with Voyance, a cloud-based offering that analyzes inputs from wired and wireless LANs to gauge users' actual experiences on a network.

Lawson explained it thusly: “Voyance uses software to analyze traffic on a company’s network and generate metadata, which it analyzes in Amazon’s VPC (Virtual Private Cloud),” he said. “It correlates data from all networks using Voyance to provide benchmarks and insights, which appear on a dashboard for IT administrators. The feedback includes reports about problems, recommendations for how to resolve them and insights into the potential effects of events like adding new applications.”

In short, a product like this allows administrators to avoid having to look at inputs from multiple monitoring applications for different vendors and parts of the network.

Anupam Singh, director of IT network, telecommunications and security services at Suffolk University in Boston, summed up the value of a product like Voyance.

“It gives you more intelligence,” he said. “It gives you more value from the data that was in silos.”

And that, in a nutshell shows the value. Faster identification of a problem means a faster resolution, less downtime and happier users. Welcome to the world of Cloud IT.