How Telstra Adaptive Networks can reduce the burden of network management

It’s never been easy for IT/network managers to ensure performance when using traditional networks.

Most organisations have to manage several networks from different providers, and that’s a complex task. If cloud services are in the mix, you have to deal with different cloud providers as well.

With increased complexity comes reduced agility. There are so many moving parts to manage, it’s difficult to respond quickly to business change.

All of these pressures have escalated dramatically over the past few years with the move to hybrid and remote working, and the adoption of cloud services to support these activities.

What’s more, the increasingly distributed nature of business has opened up a raft of security vulnerabilities.

The burden on time-poor IT/network managers is now much heavier, yet they still have to deliver peak outcomes for the business. The problem is, when you’re juggling so many balls in the air, sooner or later one of them will drop.

Common concerns facing IT/network managers

Capacity management is an ongoing issue. Traditional networks take time to match capacity to business requirements. Either it’s done in house manually, or you have to contact your provider to get them to do it.

Because of the delay and effort involved, managers are always playing catch-up with capacity management. That’s not good for managing costs, or meeting the needs of business users.

Setting up new sites can also be arduous and lengthy if everything is manually deployed and configured. There are no short cuts with a traditional network.

But these problems are minor compared with network outages. And they will happen. But when something goes wrong, how do you identify what it is? Which vendor do you approach to fix it? And how soon will the issue be resolved? Every moment the network is down affects revenue, productivity and business reputation.

Ensuring security is the other overriding concern. As activities move outside the traditional business perimeter, whether to the cloud, at home, or mobile working, you need to know your network is protected. 

If that wasn’t enough, IT/network managers have to satisfy all of these demands while controlling costs. All too often, price becomes the determining factor in selecting a network provider. Although understandable, it’s a short-sighted view that can create a significant downside to managing the issues described above. Because ultimately, you get what you pay for.

With Telstra’s Adaptive Networks, you get more for your dollar. Plus a floating price with no lock-in contract offers greater flexibility. Of course, if you want extra assurance, you can still have a set term with minimum spend. The key point is to look at the value, rather than the price.

Telstra Adaptive Networks can reduce the load

A Telstra Adaptive Networks solution doesn’t just provide access, it can include gateways to clouds, security platforms, public internet and/ or private networks. Integrated connectivity makes it simple to select, combine and adjust the access you need.

If you choose to self-manage or co-manage, online management platforms allow you to dial bandwidth up or down yourself, or even cancel services as you need to.

In addition, a central management console provides visibility of your cloud services, and lets you add or remove them with ease. 

We’ve also digitised the back end of our network services to remove many manual configurations, so it’s much faster and economical to set up new sites.

All of this means that many of the time-consuming chores that IT/network managers have to deal with are simpler and faster. It also gives them more time to think strategically about the business.

With Telstra Adaptive Networks, IT/network managers also don’t have to worry so much about outages and incidents. With failover redundancy protocols built into the fabric of our SD-WAN solutions and embedded into our routers, with the right solution  you can still maintain availability of services during network outages and ensure business continuity. 

That’s due to a key difference between Telstra and our competitors: we own our network. When you use Telstra Fibre,  we have complete visibility and control and can monitor and assure the network end-to-end. Plus we offer a single point of accountability - no more dealing with multiple providers.

Unique to Telstra in Australia is our in-built Network Observability functions. Network Observability uses AI and ML to detect and resolve issues in real time. It also enables us to predict problems in our networks and resolve them before they impact customers. We can even observe traffic to nbn™ and selected third-party providers and inform them of issues.

You can also be confident of top-notch security. Our network has multi-layer security and 24/7 monitoring. We also have ISO 27001 certification for our core network products, and offer SASE-compliant solutions.

Equally important, Telstra Adaptive Networks are designed to be future-ready. As your digital transformation journey progresses, our modular solutions and services will help.

This means you can have the right technology, at the right time and place, with the right support, at the right cost. That means no erroneous actions, no remedial effort, and no money wasted, removing a significant burden from the shoulders of IT/network management.