What Are Network Services?
Network services are applications at the network application layer that connect users working in offices, branches, or remote locations to applications and data in a network. These services typically run on servers.
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What are some types of network services?
Here are examples of types of network services:
- Internet and cloud connectivity
- Branch office and campus connectivity
- Private data center services
- Secure cloud-connectivity services
- Virtual network services
What is secure access service edge (SASE)?
SASE is a network architecture that combines software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) capabilities and cloud-native security functions. Organizations can use SASE architecture to provide users with secure connections to applications from any location.
SASE offers a way for users to access critical applications quickly, using Direct Internet Access (DIA). This approach eliminates the need to first backhaul network traffic through a corporate data center to apply traditional security measures.
Users can also access applications securely. The cloud-native security functions in SASE architecture include secure web gateways, cloud-access security brokers, and firewalls. These functions are delivered from the cloud and are provided as one integrated architecture by SASE vendors.
What is network as a service (NaaS)?
NaaS is a cloud model that lets organizations easily operate their networks and achieve the outcomes they expect from them without owning, building, or maintaining infrastructure themselves.
NaaS can replace hardware-centric virtual private networks (VPNs), load balancers, firewall appliances, and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) connections. As a result, organizations can scale up or down more easily as demand changes, rapidly deploy services, and eliminate some hardware costs.
NaaS simplifies how connectivity technologies are managed and consumed. It enables greater speed, agility, and scale. SD-WAN can be deployed as a value-added service with NaaS.
While SASE is an architecture, NaaS is a complete service offering for operating networking without owning physical infrastructure.
What is a content delivery network?
Many organizations are now prioritizing the adoption of content delivery networks (CDNs) that have intelligent network services.
A CDN is a system of servers and storage. An organization uses it to efficiently share content, applications, rich media, and more with users across an enterprise, including in remote and branch office locations.
A CDN replicates content to the edge of the network, reducing the distance between the content consumer and the location that the content is being served from. The technology helps to reduce network congestion issues and to optimize bandwidth usage.
Organizations can use CDNs to deliver rich media services and apps to users' desktops while also improving website and network performance.
If the CDN includes intelligent network services, it also can provide security, voice, virtual private network (VPN), multicast, and other services.
Trends affecting network services
The accelerated shifts to remote and hybrid work and to the cloud are the trends making the most impact on the access and delivery of network services. The following sections summarize these closely related trends and some of their challenges.
Remote and hybrid work models
Today, many users need to access data and applications from just about anywhere—such as from home offices and other remote locations—using their own devices.
As more organizations are expected to support remote or hybrid work for the long term, and with applications' requiring more bandwidth, it's important for IT professionals to make sure that their network services and infrastructure are up to the task.
That's why many are looking at the NaaS cloud model for operating their network flexibly, reliably, and cost-effectively. NaaS surpasses traditional network infrastructure in its ability to make scaling resources up or down easier, speed service deployment, and support elimination of some hardware costs.
Cloud
The cloud helps organizations support "anywhere working," a trend that has accelerated considerably during the global health crisis. Expanded remote work has also prompted many organizations to move more of their on-premises applications and workloads to the cloud, to increase agility and resilience.
A multicloud strategy has led to a rapid rise in the use of hybrid clouds, which combine on-premises and public clouds and can be centrally managed.
The need to rethink network architecture
Expanded use of remote and hybrid work and of cloud technology is adding to IT teams' already complex challenge of keeping the network running optimally and delivering services reliably.
The teams must help to ensure that network users have a good experience when accessing applications—no matter where the users are connecting from, what devices they're using, or how they're connecting.
With application access extending beyond the local-area network (LAN), many enterprises are reevaluating their IT infrastructure and their approach to network management.
As part of that reevaluation, many organizations are considering a SASE architecture as a way to gain the connectivity, security, and observability their IT teams need to meet new and evolving demand for network services. This cloud-native architecture can also help them streamline networking and security functions, so that they can reduce IT workloads.
Also, many organizations are considering deployment of CDNs to support their remote and branch users.