When remote work became the norm due to COVID-19, companies rushed to give their employees access to the tools and software they would need in order to effectively perform their jobs at home. Two years after this transition, organizations and their employees seem to be settling in. According to Forbes, “25% of all professional jobs in North America will be remote by the end of 2022.” Remote work, or at least a hybrid option, will most likely be permanent workforce models for many businesses, which obviously leads to new challenges for IT. In this article, we cover IT network challenges, what Aruba’s EdgeConnect Microbranch is, and how it can help your enterprise stay protected while working from home.
Remote Work Trends That Challenge IT Teams
IT teams have been confronted with a host of pandemic-related challenges. With the lasting implementation of remote work, enterprise networking teams need to manage and support a great deal of dispersed home office locations for the foreseeable future.
One challenge for enterprise technology teams is dealing with IT issues out of the home office. These can be difficult to resolve since IT teams have no visibility beyond their own environment. This creates new and higher demands on IT for remote network security and performance.
Additionally, the dangers of cybersecurity are more evident than ever, making it particularly difficult for IT teams to keep up with effectively protecting their organization’s data. IT workers have held tremendous responsibility over the last few years to help their businesses prevent, detect, and recover from cybersecurity threats not seen even five years ago. This has forced security teams to refocus on the value of cloud-enabled security tools such as EdgeConnect Microbranch by Aruba.
What Is Aruba EdgeConnect Microbranch?
EdgeConnect Microbranch, part of Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform), is an industry-leading home office and small office networking solution for hybrid work environments. It comprises access points (APs) and a new suite of SD-WAN services. It also builds upon Aruba’s proven history of delivering robust connectivity, security, and zero-touch onboarding experiences to the home office through its popular Remote Access Points (RAPs). With this resource, enterprise IT departments can ensure employee experiences are consistent at any location via a single Wi-Fi AP. EdgeConnect Microbranch delivers a full range of on-campus connectivity services to remote personnel, which can accelerate troubleshooting, maintain corporate protections, and ultimately, connect your distributed workforce.
Key features of EdgeConnect Microbranch include:
- Cloud-managed Wi-Fi
- Intelligent policy-based routing
- Automated route and tunnel orchestration
- SASE and Zero Trust
- WAN health troubleshooting
- Access to in-office resources
These elements make it easier for IT to provide high-quality connectivity to employees working from home by extending the WAN from the campus to remote work locations.
Why Are Remote Work Solutions Necessary?
Normalizing remote work affects how IT manages each hybrid workspace, and as a result, one of the many challenges IT teams face is cyber threats in the home office. Just last year, ransomware hit record highs at an alarming rate. Networking and security teams now need to cope with extending on-campus Zero Trust and securing access service edge (SASE) frameworks to a sizeable number of remote offices located at the edge.
Using remote work solutions such as EdgeConnect Microbrandch gives IT teams better control and visibility into the remote network. This way, they can optimize the network and ensure remote workers have access to their required resources and experience the same high-quality service as they would in the office. This can also aid the IT team in protecting against security threats without disrupting the productivity of those working from home.
There is an immediate need for all enterprises to identify new collaboration tools to fulfill the needs of remote work. Taking advantage of solutions like EdgeConnect Microbranch can ensure secure and reliable access for remote workforces. Cloud-based network management can help IT troubleshoot issues impacting remote workers along with managing highly distributed environments more easily.
If your organization is ready to improve its remote work solutions and get the assistance required to meet the demands of the distributed workforce, EdgeConnect Microbranch can help. Contact WEI today to start improving your Wi-Fi reliability and supporting your remote workers with new technology solutions.
Next Steps: Download and read WEI’s free tech brief, Top 5 Roles for Wi-Fi in the Enterprise.
