The advent of cloud-based services and staff expectations for technology ‘to just work’ is redefining the ‘edge’ of organisations, says Paul Griffiths, Technical Director at Riverbed
With devolution on the near horizon CIOs need to be in a position to rapidly and dynamically provision staff as requirements change – wherever and however that may be.
Whether staff are based at head office, remote office, co-located or on the move, having the right technology to do the job is key. Yet at the same time both the security of mission-critical data and performance and control of infrastructure are essential.
When processes, services and people ‘at the edge’ of the organisation are IT-enabled they become more agile, efficient, and powerful. All of which are attributes that will be central in meeting the challenges of devolution and the integration of health and social care at a time of tight budgets.
As we move into 2016 efficiency will be the name of the game – from the operational efficiency gains that can accrue from eliminating the need for remote-site IT specialists on hand to manage gear in the branch office, through to enabling officers to deliver effectively.
There are many ways to deliver elements of the above, but Riverbed’s SteelFusion can help you deliver on all of this. It can also deliver a better end-user experience across the hybrid network by optimising on-premise, cloud, and SaaS applications effectively through one solution.
Importantly, SteelFusion provides data security and centralised data protection with all the benefits of running remote location services locally. It eliminates the need for physical servers, storage and backup infrastructure, allows for fast provisioning and recovery of services, and provides superior performance of on-premise and cloud-based applications.
Simplicity, reliability and visibility
We think that managing remote office IT for the organisation should be as simple as managing your smartphone. So we have designed SteelFusion with that in mind:
It’s simple and seamless: Like your smartphone, SteelFusion is an all-in-one device. It eliminates the need for costly infrastructure at branch locations. WAN optimisation, server virtualisation, and storage delivery are all brought together for greater data protection, productivity, business continuity, and agility.
It’s rapidly deployed: On your smartphone, you can go to an app store and download, access, and use new apps in just seconds. With SteelFusion, you can instantly provision and deploy new branch services and entire sites.
It’s stateless: If you lose your smartphone or it breaks or crashes, you simply re-sync your data from the cloud to a new device with no loss. With SteelFusion, it’s the same way. Appliances can easily be replaced and recovered with virtually no data loss, as 100% of your data is centralised in the data centre.
It’s centrally synced and stored: If you accidentally delete something from your smartphone, you can always retrieve it from the cloud. With SteelFusion, if you experience any data loss at the branch, you can instantly recover it from the data centre.
It’s secure: You can protect your smartphone data by locking out would-be thieves with passwords, pins, and by installing security apps. SteelFusion protects your sensitive data by housing it in the secure data centre and encrypting it when in use at the branch.
It’s resilient: If you lose connectivity on your smartphone, your apps don’t stop working. You can continue to complete work, and all changes synchronise when connectivity is restored. It’s a similar story with SteelFusion, designed to tolerate WAN link irregularities or outages so productivity isn’t hindered.
It’s high-performing: Users expect apps on their smartphone to work. Why should your branch users expect any different? Integrated into SteelFusion is the industry's #1 WAN optimisation solution, Riverbed® SteelHead™, which accelerates all user traffic in the branch across the optimal networks at the lowest cost. On-premise and cloud-based apps simply work, and users stay productive.
For more information on how you can help your organisation meet the challenges ahead download our brief here.
As you can see in this video: No servers. No storage. No backup. No impact on application performance.
