Wi-Fi has come a long way since it was first introduced. Originally, wireless connectivity was used for basic services such as checking email, but technology has changed and more devices now connect to wireless networks in order to perform their job tasks. With this evolution of the workplace, Wi-Fi has needed to adapt to support the growing number of devices and applications. How can Wi-Fi meet the needs of the modern workforce?
Over the years, the public cloud has been promoted as the panacea of innovation and reduced costs where companies could host their network infrastructure and service their workloads. In doing so, many companies have found out that not everything is ideally suited for the cloud. Latency prone applications, data sovereignty, and security compliance are just some of the challenges that have reduced the luster of the public cloud recently. As a result, two-thirds of enterprises are scaling back or discontinuing their use of public cloud services and shifting workloads to on premises private and/or hybrid cloud environments.
Chances are since you were a kid you were fascinated by speed, whether it be athletes, cars, or planes. Speed is impressive—especially in the modern cloud-first data center architectures of today. It is expected. The legacy single gigabit network infrastructure of yesteryear is over. Increased adoption of 10 Gigabit Ethernet servers coupled with applications using higher bandwidth is accelerating the need for dense 10, 40, and 100 Gigabit Ethernet switching. In fact, it is no longer unusual to see hosts generating 10Gbs of traffic or find 25/40 gigabit Ethernet switches at the edge of today’s enterprises. In fact, according to a study in 2017, the combined market for 25Gbe and 100GbE will account for over half of all data center Ethernet switch shipments by 2021. Shipments of 100Gbe switches reached 1.3 million ports and $661 million in revenues in the fourth quarter of 2017 for the U.S. alone. In Hollywood, sixty may be the new fifty, but in today’s datacenter, twenty-five is the new ten.
We are excited to share the news that Jennifer Burl, WEI’s Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility, was named to CRN’s prestigious 2018 Women of the Channel list. CRN editors select the Women of the Channel honorees based on their professional accomplishments, demonstrated expertise, and ongoing dedication to the IT channel.
When discussing the ongoing digital transformation that companies are implementing on a global basis, enterprise architects articulate the benefits of hybrid IT and the software defined data center. The process of digitizing business services and delivering them through highly scalable redundant multi-cloud ecospheres is generating agility and flexibility that companies need to compete in a hyperactive competitive global world. However, the necessity to harness new technology is not restricted to enterprise infrastructure only. Just as the makeup of the data center is transforming itself, the nature of work itself is also changing.
At WEI, we’re always looking for ways we can step up and can give back to our local communities, from gathering clothes for those in need to volunteering at a soup kitchen. One recent initiative to serve our community has been to host a food drive in partnership with a local non-profit, End 68 Hours of Hunger’s Salem Chapter. Earlier this month we wrapped up our annual drive for them, and the results were astounding—a testament to the generosity of the wonderful group of people working at WEI!
There seems to be a lot of hype these days within the IT industry. IT manufacturers herald “this time it’s different,” with every new generation of products. Each subsequent generation of products boasts the same claims such as lower support and maintenance costs, reduced TCO and greater ROI, and greater agility, flexibility and scalability in deployments and management. Newly introduced generational products in the IT industry often do deliver these promised benefits to some extent. However, the overwhelming amount of industry buzz often times makes it hard to sift through accurate claims concerning enterprise equipment. This is especially true concerning enterprise data storage.
The digital landscape is changing at a rapid pace, and with change comes an increase in the need for cybersecurity measures that protect businesses. Although technology is providing exciting opportunities, it also brings with it challenges that enterprises must learn to overcome.
What was once a far-fetched dream, the Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile devices, have permeated our lives, personally and professionally. In order to compete, enterprises must acknowledge this shift and implement infrastructure that supports it.
