Why We Can't Go Back

Eric Wolford, SVP Marketing and Business Development
Riverbed Technology - Volume 2, 2007

Technology communications has become the primary foundation for business and social interaction. As the workforce of nearly every industry continues to expand, so does the importance and relevance of IT. Almost two thirds of the global workforce is now productive in some capacity away from office and home. And their numbers are growing. With more people working in more places, the effects of distributed globalization is elevated by increasing consolidation of IT resources in fewer places. As the distance between workers and data increases, so does the burden on the technology and resources that connect them. 

Further compounding this are the expectations of a generation raised almost entirely on high access digital environments. Users will no longer wait hours or even minutes to access files, data, or applications that are hosted centrally. Distributed employees need and expect instant collaboration with colleagues hundreds or thousands of miles away as if they were in the next office. Data that used to take days to back up must now be replicated in hours. Everyday, we become more used to, and expect, instant access to any information anywhere. Not faster, but instant.

Riverbed believes the central promise of IT is to deliver integrated solutions that meet the rising demand for speed, capacity, and access in a way that doesn't make the problem harder to manage. Successful CIOs know that if they don't keep up with the demand for instant, anywhere access, the workforce will rebel.  If not properly architected and maintained, the incredible productivity enabled by a Wide Area Network can just as quickly benchmark its failure. Fortunately, there are powerful wide-area data services that not only meet escalating enterprise requirements but also exceed and drive them. Solutions that, commensurate with the value they provide, are also affordable and easy to manage. This is critical because the truth is that we can't go back. Enterprises must continue to provide expanding distribution capacity without jeopardizing infrastructure efficiency or there will be a revolt. This is both the fundamental burden and the critical benefit of our industry.

Eric Wolford is SVP marketing and business development for Riverbed Technology, the technology and market leader in wide-area data services (WDS) solutions for companies worldwide. By enabling application performance over the wide area network (WAN) that is orders of magnitude faster than what users experience today, Riverbed is changing the way people work, and enabling a distributed workforce that can collaborate as if they were local. Additional information about Riverbed is available at www.riverbed.com.

Recommend this article Subscribe RSS Feed Print