Research Highlights the Imminent Demise of Legacy Networks

The results therefore suggest real discontent with legacy networks built up over time. The research also showed that 79% were discouraged by the cost of upgrading when it came to considering extra capacity for the WAN, due to the costs associated with jumping to the next level of bandwidth. The remainder were discouraged by the inflexibility of legacy networks and the length of time it takes to upgrade. The issues then are two fold; not only are companies considering alternative technologies for the WAN, but they have also been discouraged from investing further in their existing infrastructure. This also goes some way to explaining why companies are looking at alternatives; legacy networks are seen as costly and inflexible and are actually deterring companies from adding extra capacity, which will therefore have an impact on the technologies and applications they can effectively implement. Companies are therefore faced with a huge headache when adding extra capacity to the WAN and compounding this is that almost half of those questioned confessed that worrying about applications that require large amounts of bandwidth, such as storage and back up, kept them awake at night. Companies are therefore caught between a rock and a hard place; they are faced with emerging business requirements on the one hand and outdated networks on the other. This is particularly evident in the retail, distribution and transport sectors where the majority of companies are concerned specifically by the cost and flexibility of bandwidth. This may in part be due to the distributed nature of their businesses, which necessitates high capacity, cost effective bandwidth to connect their sites, and also suggests why such a high majority are considering alternatives to the WAN. Ethernet looks set to become the main alternative to legacy networks with 89% of survey respondents stating that they would consider Ethernet for their wide area networks. With 94% of financial services companies considering the technology, it is clear that it is seen as a secure and established technology. The survey was conducted by Vanson Bourne and represented the opinions of one hundred IT Directors.