The rise of network-as-a-service

The pace of digital transformation which has accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed every organization to re-evaluate their existing network setups. As the network is one of the most important components in an organization’s digital transformation setup, any downtime in the network can have serious repercussions. However, in an increasingly hyper-connected and hybrid world, network administrators are struggling to ensure uptime and good performance. The huge inclusion of remote workersand associated bandwidth hungry application usage has created huge pressure on existing networks. With more users connecting to the network and demanding low latency and more reliable connections,there is a critical need to relook at the network.

In this scenario, Network as a Service has seen increased adoption due to the intended benefits of lower costs and improved scalability, flexibility, and security.An intelligent and secure Network-as-a-Service enables organizations to enjoy the benefits of greater flexibility, scalability, automation, predictability and control to support the high-performance hybrid environment. Simply put, Network-as-service (NaaS) is a business model for delivering enterprise-wide area network services virtually on a subscription basis.

What's driving the trend toward NaaS?

Network-as-service (NaaS) is an emerging model for organizations to consume network infrastructure through flexible operating expense (OpEx) subscriptions, inclusive of hardware, software, management tools, licenses, and lifecycle services.

The traditional network model requires capital expenses (CapEx) for physical networks with switches, routers, and licensing. The do-it-yourself IT model requires time for planning and deployment as well as expertise to install and configure infrastructure and to ensure security access policies are in place.

This model involves the following:

• Diligent monitoring for updates and security patches is essential due to rapid changes in technology and security threats.
• Provisioning a new service is a manual process that requires a technician to deploy and configure equipment at various locations.
• Service provisioning and issue resolution have historically been lengthy processes

As networks have grown in complexity with more mobile users connecting from everywhere and with the expansion to cloud, IT teams have been challenged to keep pace.

The advantage of Network as a Service

Typically offered by managed service providers, a Network as a Service model has a number of benefits. Under the NaaS offering, a MSP can help enterprises ensure that the network (from the edge to the cloud) delivers the security and high performance that is required by a digital enterprise today.With the agility to quickly adapt to business demands, networking capabilities can complement the existing infrastructure services and technologies of clients to sharpen their competitive edge.

Some of the key benefits of Network as a Service include:

Ability to deliver unparalleled employee and customer experience by creating the required connectivity to support a hybrid workplace, underpinning their employee, customer and partner ecosystem

With automation and AI Ops, enterprises can deliver proactive issue detection and predictive analytics that drive the automated resolution of incidents

NaaS provides proactive network monitoring, security policy enforcement, advanced firewall and packet inspection capabilities, and modelling of the performance of applications and the underlying infrastructure over time

NaaS services are delivered through a cloud model to offer greater flexibility and customization than conventional infrastructure. Changes are implemented through software, not hardware. This is typically provided through a self-service model. IT teams can, for example, reconfigure their corporate networks on demand and add new branch locations in a fraction of the time. NaaS often provides term-based subscription with usage billing and multiple payment options to support various consumption requirements

NaaS is inherently more scalable than traditional, hardware-based networks. NaaS customers simply purchase more capacity instead of purchasing, deploying, configuring, and securing additional hardware. This means they can scale up or down quickly as needs change

Ability to benefit from SDN, host and connect to applications in the cloud, overcome technical debt and harness investments & innovations

Improved security due to the ability to better manage risk through enhanced security at the edge, across the core in the application and by persona

The network is one of the most critical components in a digital initiative. Against this context, adopting NaaS can prove to be extremely beneficial for enterprises and can increase productivity in a big way. In summary, the network as a service model with advanced management capabilities allows enterprises to rely on a trusted NaaS provider for the non-differentiated, day-to-day management of the network, which in turn frees up time for IT workers to focus on business enabling tasks while improving the performance and security of their networks.

The article has been written by Manoj Chitgopeker, Vice President, Managed Network and Collaboration Services NTT Ltd. in India