As the trend for flexible and remote working marches on, businesses need to develop a coherent strategy for delivering applications to an increasingly scattered workforce, according to analyst house Butler Group.
Writing in a report entitled Application Delivery — Creating a Flexible, Service-centric Network Architecture, Mark Blowers, senior research analyst and co-author of the study, said: "The effect of changing social patterns on business models cannot be ignored, with more and more of the workforce now based away from head office. A growing proportion of the workforce is also becoming more mobile, meaning that organisations must cater for them in corporate and IT strategies."
According to Blowers, a growing number of workers expect to work remotely and roam freely using any type of device — but this independence presents companies with problems. "There is an increased business risk to this freedom, with the main issues being the security of information outside the confines of the office and the ability to effectively manage the wider environment," he said.
Butler Group said many remotely accessed applications are mission-critical to businesses but IT managers face issues with centralisation and manageability, poor performance, reliability and security.
Blowers said businesses must take a "strategic approach" to dealing with application delivery.
"Previously it's been very tactical, where bits of solutions have been put in," he said. "The time is now that people ought to be looking at this and developing a proper strategy end-to-end because you've got people scattered about now and you've got people using different devices, you've got branch offices — and everything's becoming a lot more [like a] virtual organisation and IT must look to support that."
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Blowers added: "You can't just expect that applications that were designed for internal use will work over a wider network, whether using the internet or a managed service to do that." Companies must look at ways of optimising the links with remote workers and branch offices or productivity will suffer as system response times will be poor, he said.
Enterprises must also ensure security is not neglected as their workforce becomes increasingly dispersed, said Blowers, and should adopt a "layered approach", making use of technologies such as firewalls, VPNs and intrusion detection/prevention systems to ensure IT systems are locked down.
Security risks to businesses with workforce diasporas include data loss and data leakage, eavesdropping on transmissions, the ability of third parties to intercept wireless communications, the lack of central control and reduced connection controls, said Butler Group.
