Take control of connectivity with Telstra’s Adaptive Networks

In today’s highly competitive business environment, having reliable networks is as crucial as coffee on a monday morning. Gone are the days when mere internet access sufficed; increasingly organisations today expect to be able to seamlessly store and share information—whether that’s transferring large, sensitive data; conducting glitch-free video conferences; or running cloud-based applications without any bottlenecks.

Slow connections can impact productivity and innovation.

Navigating the challenges: The evolution of digital infrastructure

As businesses in Australia and New Zealand strive to adapt to the digital age, they encounter various challenges in upgrading their infrastructure.  According to IDC’s Future of Digital Infrastructure Sentiment Survey, most ANZ businesses have progressed from early states to developing and enhancing digital infrastructure initiatives. However, compared to their global counterparts, ANZ organisations still lag. 

 Evolving digital infrastructure requires cultural alignment, capability uplift, operating model modernisation, and investment in digital technologies. Some firms find themselves “deadlocked” in one stage because they struggle to transform one or more of these criteria.

The IDC survey identified some of the greatest hurdle’s organisations face in adopting a digital infrastructure strategy. Over two-thirds use four or more cloud providers, raising concerns about silos and lack of integration. Operational and staffing challenges are cited by 53%, while 51% struggle with managing distributed data consistently.

Opportunities through Adaptive Networks

Amidst these challenges, with Adaptive Network, your network can algin with your changing business needs more quickly, thereby enabling faster and better outcomes, which can lead to better faster speed to market and improved business continuity —not to mention fewer grey hairs for everyone involved. 

Telstra’s Adaptive Networks provide online tools which provide visibility to assist your IT operations. User-friendly controls let you decide how your network is designed, assured, and managed so you can customise the connectivity products to fit your business needs. Not to mention flexible commercial options give you the choice to select the options that suit your business best.

Choose from the latest software-defined networking technologies, cloud gateways, and security platform integrations. Mix and match public or private connections to sites or clouds to suit your business and workloads. You can select between connectivity options including fibre, wireless, 4G, 5G, and low-cost NBN broadband access to suit your site location, bandwidth requirement, security needs and desired resiliency.

This customised option helps ensure you can achieve simplicity, agility, certainty, and security all at once.

When everything runs smoothly and securely, you can focus on core operations instead of wasting time being on the phone with your network provider and trying to troubleshoot the problem. A stable network provides peace of mind, allowing your business to thrive.

Driving transformative results: Real-world success stories

Just look at the positive results:  Longreach Regional Council’s legacy MPLS network was reaching its limits, with challenges around performance, bandwidth, and latency inhibiting its digital ambitions. With the aid of Telstra’s proposed SD-WAN Adapt S1 solution, built on SASE architecture leveraging Telstra’s powerful internet connectivity infrastructure, Longreach Regional Council achieved incredible results with its network transformation.

“Council has saved tens of thousands of dollars… increased speeds, lower costs, more redundancy, more visibility, and more security. There’s also more control as well,” says Michael Ballard, Senior IT Officer, Longreach Regional Council, QLD.

Meanwhile, Victoria University is experiencing - after Telstra Purple and Cisco helped set up its newest City Campus - the successful deployment of Cisco Software-defined Networking (SDN). Led by Telstra Purple, the deployment improved and simplified Victoria University's IT operations by automating processes like device provisioning, issue identification, and policy updates, offering better security, transparency, and visibility across the campus.

“We have seen a shift in where we need to enable security policies and access—from 10 days in a traditional network environment to a couple of hours here. We can now provide network access to our students, teachers, and partners, seamlessly and securely,” says Nitin Singh, Acting Executive Director, Information Technology Services, Victoria University.

Enhancing Adaptive Network for the future:

While Adaptive Networks already exist, Telstra is committed to enhancing them further to meet the evolving needs of businesses. Our vision includes a shift towards digitisation, where innovative solutions will revolutionise the way businesses interact with their networks. This digital transformation will introduce enhancements such as Adaptive Network Centre, empowering businesses with even greater control, flexibility, and efficiency.

The future of Adaptive Networks: Digital User Interface vision

Looking ahead, Telstra is advancing the digitisation of its Adaptive Networks by giving businesses greater control and flexibility through a digital user interface- AN Centre. We’re all about providing practical tools that work for you. With our Adaptive Networks, we’re making connectivity products easier to use and customisable, and putting the control right where it belongs—in the hands of the people running the show.

While multiple SDN/Overlay networks offer similar experiences, Telstra's Adaptive Network centre designs and deploys directly into Telstra's core network capabilities rather than just a subset of Enterprise networking capabilities. This includes deployment direct to customers' sites across multiple technology accesses/connectivity and overlay products with an unique level of automation and control. Adaptive Network Centre, will be a simple, user-friendly tool where you’ll be able to request changes instantaneously; obtain quotes in near real-time to make swift, informed decisions; and gain visibility and control over network performance and security. You will be able monitor, adjust, and optimise everything from one centralised hub.

We’re continually improving the platform by adding more product components, so you can easily switch things up and add services whenever you need them. You’ll have complete control and management of your network services, making everything run smoother. Our vision is to offer API’s direct to you, so you’ll be able to integrate Telstra’s services into your current IT setup, making your operations more streamlined and automated.