Post-Pandemic Data Center Strategy

I consult with companies from many markets that are scattered across the United States, and most of them had to pivot last year when the COVID pandemic hit. Scrambling for answers for a remote workforce, some were better prepared than others. Almost universally, they took budgets they had for things like data center and sank those funds into remote workforce initiatives. With the change in our work standards, we must define what our new “normal” is and determine what investments we should make in the core, edge, and cloud.

In today’s pandemic times, we are finding more and more customers and end users are working remotely from home. This requires users to access a number of devices, including laptops and tablets, while at home. Is this secure? Absolutely not.

The remote workforce is now more prominent than ever, and companies are looking for the best long-term or even permanent solutions for a work-from-home model that meets the needs of the business. With video conferencing becoming more widely used by businesses, the ability to prioritize voice and video over the home internet connection can really add stability and improved experience to video and voice calls. The good news is that permanent home offices can now be treated in the same way a satellite office has been traditionally configured with an SD-WAN solution.

When employees were first sent to work from home, organizations scrambled to provide work-from-home software, devices, and infrastructure. As we transition to a new normal, it’s now important to reevaluate the initial infrastructure laid to support remote workers against a lasting, best-practice architecture. In the last entry, I shared the first three pillars for a thriving remote workforce. Let’s now explore the final three pillars.

Business travelers and those who have traditionally worked from home have enjoyed the evolution of connecting via mobile apps for a while now. For some though, recent events may have just introduced them to the possibility of doing so. Let's take a closer look at some of these service types, and review ways to incorporate additional layers of security while connecting your newly remote corporate users to them.

Operating a remote workforce is no longer just a remote possibility. A work-from-home war is being quietly waged across many organizations throughout the country, as workers who were forced to quickly establish home office environments now wish to remain in their home rather than return to commuting to an office. This tipping point has deep and wide ramifications for organizations attempting to return to pre-COVID-19 productivity levels. 

By now, you are in the midst of working from home and trying to define what the “new normal” looks like for you and your family. Reflecting on what that has looked like for me over the course of the past month, I noticed some details that raised my level of concern.