As a CIO, you will know only too well how the challenge of network latency (delay) can put the breaks on any enterprise data strategy and seriously hinder data velocity.
This issue can affect how quickly data can be transformed in to tangible ROI, or more seriously, leave a business at severe risk from catastrophic failures such as incomplete backups, compromised disaster recovery strategies and replication failures.
And then there is the security issue that traditional data transfer methods maybe exposing your business to. Something that is particularly relevant to those looking to take advantage of the benefits associate with being in the Cloud.
Typically, enterprises have looked to traditional approaches – such as WAN optimisation technology – to tackle moving large amounts of data from place to place. However, the changing nature of data, with increased usage of video and the required additional security needed to be able to utilise the public cloud, is invariably slowing data transfers down even further.
In a recent article on The Register, journalist Chris Mellor highlights the problem:
“In large-scale data migrations, a set of files to be migrated is first checked over for consistency, to make sure it can be read and copied. It’s then actually copied, and verified at the destination as well. Such consistency checks take time.”
With volumes of data on the increase, traditional IT infrastructure is creaking under the pressure and the reality is that many in the financial services sector have been forced to architect around the problem of latency.
Latency is a fact of life and trying to solve the impact of the problem with bigger pipes or expanded bandwidth has been a common attempt to find a workaround. The problem with this is the effects of latency are unchanged, and network performance and data velocity still suffers. Despite the added investment, increasing the bandwidth without solving the latency issue, decreases the ROI by the same factor as the increase in bandwidth
Thankfully this is a problem that innovators of new technology have been working on and we are seeing players enter the market that will become the future for CIOs struggling with the impact that latency have on data strategies.
One such example is one of Gartner’s latest ‘Cool Vendors’. Bridgeworks – has been recognised for the impact its PORTrockIT technology will have on transferring data at speed, delivering up to 200x faster data transfer speeds, across the WAN.
