The remote work surge has complicated IT management, resulting in a higher focus on digital transformation. Black Box, a specialist in crafting the future of work, blends business resilience and digital strategies to accelerate this transformation, which includes seizing emerging market opportunities from shifts in consumer and employee behaviors
In an era where seamless connectivity is a non-negotiable aspect of our daily lives, businesses are rapidly adopting innovative solutions to meet the demands of a digitally connected world. In this evolving business landscape, WiFi as a Service (WaaS) is emerging as a game-changer, revolutionizing the way organizations manage and deliver WiFi connectivity. Let's delve into the world of WaaS to discover how it can transform your business.
Read MoreThe pandemic accelerated the need for enterprises to modernize technology infrastructure and reimagine business, including accelerating data and digital platforms. Black Box can help enterprises design, deploy, and manage an optimized network for secure work — whether it's remote, onsite, or hybrid.
Simplify the transition to hybrid work for manufacturing and agro-based industries. Enhance your ability to acquire and retain top talent while driving innovation and enabling a competitive edge.
View InfographicCreate and maintain a post-pandemic workplace that's safe for boundless collaboration and true resiliency, including working from anywhere on any device with all policies and procedures in tow.
View InfographicDesign a resilient network environment and deploy it locally and/or globally, at one site or hundreds with consistent, fast, repeatable outcomes. Back it up with remote IT support, proactive maintenance and expert monitoring.
Black Box's technicians specialize in core capabilities that can help your enterprise securely optimize its network for remote traffic; safeguard corporate assets; and build a phased plan that makes the most effective use of your existing environment and maps out the digital transformation journey.
Connects enterprise networks — including branches and data centers — over large geographic distances providing centralized visibility, automation, and security.
Learn MoreSupports a distributed mobile workforce wirelessly indoors and out (in converged management with 5G).
Learn MoreIntegrated solutions include advanced security features, embedded automation, and intelligence tools to optimize and secure core and enterprise networks.
Learn MoreManages installs in a timely, repeatable way across hundreds of sites around the globe
Learn MoreThe COVID-19 pandemic upended the workplace and freed employees to work securely from home. This liberation from the daily grind has resulted in increased productivity, better work/life balance, and savings for employees and corporations. The benefits are so great that major corporations have announced plans to offer the perk of a hybrid work environment — one where employees work in a remote/in-office combination.
Read this guide to find out how your business can retool and reimagine your current legacy system to support an exponential amount of users, devices, and locations.
Get the GuideWhat does the modern workforce look like? Gain new insight from our Enterprise Networking experts.
These days, there’s a lot of buzz about SD-WAN and for good reason. The SD-WAN market is exploding alongside the growth of edge computing and digital transformation. Gartner estimates that by the end of 2023, more than 90% of WAN edge infrastructure refreshes will be SD-WAN (or other virtualized platforms) versus traditional routers. However, there is also a lot of confusion about what SD-WAN is and why it’s so important.
SD-WAN stands for Software-Defined Wide Area Network. Obviously, it’s a combination of a software-defined network (SDN) and a wide-area network (WAN). To better understand what it is, let’s break it down into its parts.
SDN is a cloud-computing approach used for internal data centers at headquarters. It was designed to enable network administrators to respond quickly to changing business requirements via a centralized interface.
A WAN is used to connect enterprises over large geographic areas. It is the network outside your headquarters that connects your data center to remote locations. It traditionally consists of site-to-site Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) hub-and-spoke architectures connecting branches to headquarters.
So, in essence, SD-WAN gives you the best of both worlds. You’ll get the ability to manage your entire WAN centrally via the cloud even if your enterprise is dispersed with hundreds or thousands of locations across the country.
In explaining SD-WAN solutions, Gartner analyst Andrew Lerner said, “SDN is an architecture, whereas SD-WAN is a technology you can buy.”
SD-WAN uses the cloud and the internet to connect the headquarters’ data center and branch locations. As opposed to router-centric MPLS WANs, SD-WAN networks separate the network management, traffic, and monitoring functions from the hardware. And, unlike MPLS networks that lock you into a contract with one provider, SD-WAN providers offer networks with the flexibility of being able to support multiple carrier options.
The many benefits of SD-WAN are making it an appealing alternative to MPLS networks for CIOs, CFOs, and line-of-business managers.
Simplicity: Primarily, SD-WAN companies offer IT professionals simplicity and the ability to manage an entire WAN through a single, centralized interface. With zero-touch provisioning, making enterprise-wide network upgrades can be done in minutes instead of weeks or months. It also eliminates the need for on-site technicians to do expensive and time-consuming configurations at every location.
End-to-End Visibility: Achieve better network visibility, control, and analytics through a single management interface. Legacy networks are incapable of providing insight into network and application behaviors. SD-WAN gives IT managers a clear view across the entire enterprise network from the local branch to the cloud to the headquarters.
Reduced Costs: SD-WAN is inherently less expensive than traditional hub-and-spoke networks because you eliminate the need for costly routers and other traditional network equipment at each location. You also eliminate the need to dispatch techs to install and maintain the network locally. In addition, some enterprises may not be able to justify the high cost of an MPLS circuit at small, remote sites, if it is even available in rural areas. It’s been estimated that SD-WAN costs (hardware, software, support) can be up to two and a half times less than traditional WAN architectures.
Increased Performance: SD-WAN improves both application and network performance. Because SD-WAN dynamically allocates bandwidth, data travels across multiple connection paths simultaneously using the fastest routes. You also have the ability to control bandwidth at each location depending on mission-critical and non-critical applications.
Increased Uptime: With a centralized management interface, you’ll reduce troubleshooting time and increase uptime. By aggregating multiple ISP and WAN connections, you get seamless redundancy in case one path fails. MPLS networks do not always have a failover to a secondary connection.
Improved Reliability: SD-WAN solution is optimized for access to the cloud and for remote access to on-site resources. It also improves the efficiency and reliability of cloud applications such as SalesForce and Microsoft Office 365.
Increased Flexibility: SD-WAN frees you from being locked into contracts with one provider. With SD-WAN, you can switch carriers, mix and match carriers, and create hybrid SD-WAN/MPLS networks.
The move to SD-WAN is fundamentally changing the way enterprises communicate. The basic infrastructure of enterprise networks is evolving from a proprietary, vendor-specific MPLS network to a vendor-agnostic cloud transport network that is easily deployed, centrally managed, and less expensive.
Black Box offers state-of-the-art SD-WAN technology in its SimplEdge “network-in-a-box” bundle, which includes everything needed for branch networks from the cabling. Wi-Fi and security to complete professional, managed services. Learn more about SimplEdge at blackbox.com/simpledge.
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Black Box Managed Services in Partnership with Cisco
Watch WebinarThe Best Networks must adapt to the times - Black Box & Juniper Networks Live Session
Watch WebinarFor almost 45 years, Black Box has helped clients in all industries and locations around the globe build, secure, manage, reimagine, and transform their networks and IT infrastructure.
Thanks to partnerships with leading manufacturers
in digital communication and infrastructure, Black Box can help you shape a consumption model that will revolutionize your work ecosystem — and give your employees the flexibility to collaborate securely and intuitively anywhere,
anytime, on any device.
So whether you’re a large healthcare enterprise or retailer, a small manufacturer, or somewhere in between, Black Box’s 2,500 team members have the know-how to help you engineer business
continuity and innovation.
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