EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
TONY ZABANEH , MANAGER SYSTEMS
ENGINEERING , FORTINET
Legacy application and network performance monitoring tools lack the holistic , end-to-end visibility necessary to monitor , troubleshoot , and optimise today ’ s user-to-application experience . For this reason , organisations should look to adopt a digital experience monitoring platform which gives their IT teams end-to-end visibility across their entire infrastructure .
A Secure SD-WAN solution is key . It simplifies branch networking , improves application performance , and provides faster access to cloud-based applications and communications . It can also monitor and modify connections to maintain bandwidth and prevent latency , jitter , and packet loss that can affect bandwidth-intensive applications and services like digital voice and video .
This enables them to observe and track any application , starting from the end-user , who could be working from anywhere , that is off- or on- network , across any network , and even into the infrastructure on which the application is hosted .
Connectivity alone , however , is not enough . As organisations have realised , remote work is not a one-dimensional concept , getting businesscritical applications to perform as needed can still be a challenge .
In these circumstances , a small desktop appliance , such as FortiGate , can be a powerful teleworker solution for managing limited bandwidth while optimising and prioritising application use . These powerful desktop devices can also provide reliable , high-performance Wi-Fi connectivity for wireless devices , enabling them to be isolated from the open home network .
Further , their centralised management function allows administrators to fine-tune network security , connectivity , and application performance so changes can be made on-the-fly based on a variety of parameters .
With the increasing complexity of network environments , adopting a Zero Trust approach is also critical from a security point of view . As more organisations need to support WFA , work from anywhere initiatives , they are looking to Zero-Trust Network Access , ZTNA for remote access .
It provides secure , per-user and per-session access to specific applications , rather than the perimeterbased network access provided by traditional VPNs . ZTNA makes it easier to manage access to critical applications and maintain visibility into who has access to which resources .
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