Understanding Cloud Networking

The cloud is everywhere these days. It has infiltrated almost every industry, and even networking has not been able to escape its omnipresent influence. Cloud networking, in particular, has seen a lot of growth in recent years. This is because it offers a number of advantages over traditional network architectures. By removing the network devices from the local area network and storing them in a remote data center instead, cloud networking makes it much easier for businesses to scale their networks as needed, upgrade as new technologies become available, and save money on maintenance costs by outsourcing this responsibility to the service provider. Read on to learn more about how cloud networking works, its benefits compared with traditional networking setups, and some challenges that the industry will need to overcome in order to realize the full potential of this technology.

 

Cloud networking describes the use of a centralized network fabric that’s managed remotely over the internet. What once would have been dedicated network hardware installed in a company’s data center or co-lo facility is instead virtualized and managed by a service provider remotely as part of a hybrid or fully outsourced IT infrastructure. When businesses use cloud networking, they might have a few servers installed on-premises, but they also need an internet connection that can scale to accommodate many more machines as needed, such as when a new software release goes live and starts receiving more traffic than expected. To handle this sudden increase in capacity, businesses can remotely connect their servers to the centralized network fabric of the service provider, which has the power to switch over that network fabric to meet the sudden demand.

 

In general, cloud computing refers to the use of remote servers to store, process, and manage data. Cloud networking, on the other hand, is a subset of cloud computing that serves as the foundation for the internet we all use today. Cloud networks consist of computers, routers, and switches that are located in data centers and communicate with one another using the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). That centralized network fabric is what enables internet exchange points (IXPs) to route traffic between networks and send it across the globe to its final destination. The cloud computing and cloud networking industries have grown in tandem with one another since they both emerged in the mid-2000s. The cloud computing industry was valued at $237 billion globally in 2022. That same year, the cloud networking industry was worth $61 billion, according to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC). That’s because cloud computing requires a network that can communicate among servers, applications, and other types of infrastructure, such as databases and storage systems.

 

Cloud networking can be useful in a number of different use cases, particularly when it comes to managing large-scale networks that span across multiple locations. Enterprises that use cloud networking can more easily control the amount of bandwidth that each network link can use and scale their network capacity as needed to meet changes in traffic. This can be helpful for companies with remote offices that need to transfer large amounts of data, such as financial institutions and health care organizations. Cloud networking can also make it easier for telecommunications providers to keep up with the rapid evolution of 5G networks. As new technologies emerge and existing ones are improved and updated, providers will need to upgrade their networks to support all of their customers while meeting strict standards and regulations. With cloud networking, providers can upgrade their network hardware remotely without having to send engineers to each site or close down the network to make the necessary changes.

 

Cloud networking has a number of benefits over traditional networking setups, including the ease of scalability and the increased ability to quickly respond to changes in traffic and new technologies. These are the main reasons why many companies are choosing to deploy cloud-based networks over more traditional architectures. One of the biggest benefits of cloud networking is the ease of scalability. Traditional network architectures are static, meaning that network engineers must take the time to plan for growth in advance and make changes to the physical network to accommodate new servers and other network devices. With cloud networking, network engineers can use software-defined networking (SDN) to control the virtual network infrastructure remotely. This means that they can add new links, add capacity to existing links, and even remove links as necessary to scale the network without having to reconfigure the physical network.

 

Given all of the advantages that cloud networking brings to the table, it’s no surprise that it is quickly becoming the networking architecture of choice for many businesses. However, the transition to cloud networking is not without its challenges. One of the biggest challenges facing the cloud networking industry is the issue of trust. Customers need to know that their data is secure, particularly as businesses are increasingly using the cloud to store sensitive information. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has made this an even more pressing concern in recent years, as the regulation requires businesses to protect customer data or risk facing heavy fines. As a result, network service providers must invest in security technology, such as encryption and data loss prevention tools, to reassure customers that their data is secure.