What Is an Enterprise Network?
"Enterprise network" denotes the IT infrastructure that midsize and large organizations use to provide connectivity among users, devices, and applications. The goal is to support the organizations' objectives by consistently delivering connected digital services reliably and securely to workers, partners, customers, and, increasingly, also things.
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Enterprise networking architecture
What does an enterprise network comprise?
While an enterprise network needs to deliver end-to-end services to users, things, and applications, it may consist of separate but connected constituent domains. Typically, each constituent network is designed, provisioned, and optimized for its own purpose and business objectives. Constituent network types include:
- Campus, branch, and Internet of Things (IoT): These networks provide fixed and mobile access to users and things. They are present in all areas of an organization, both in offices and in operational spaces such as manufacturing and warehouse facilities. These networks are optimized for transparent, secure access and high density.
- Data center and hybrid clouds: These networks connect to and among applications, workloads, and data, within on-premises data centers and private and public cloud services. They're optimized for low latency, security, and mission-critical reliability.
- Wide-area networks (WANs): These networks connect facilities, buildings, or campuses to other branches, to data centers, or to cloud resources. They're optimized for user experience and bandwidth efficiency.
How are enterprise networks evolving?
- Providing a foundation for the modern digital enterprise: Increasingly, networks are expected to improve security, enhance user experience, and support many devices performing essential business tasks. Well-designed enterprise networks support a variety of users, devices, smart things, and applications to provide consistent assured service.
- Using network controllers: As the command and control centers of modern enterprise networks, controllers orchestrate all functions of the network. They perform tasks such as translating business objectives into policies, automating network device operations, performance monitoring, and troubleshooting.
- Expanding scope: As the number of network transactions originating or terminating outside of traditional corporate perimeters increases--owing to trends such as expansion to multiple public clouds, mobility, and working from home--the network needs to extend visibility, control, and security to wherever users, things, and applications are located.
- Integrating enterprisewide: Enterprises are now adopting a holistic, open networking strategy that integrates across constituent network domains and with applications and IT systems. Such integrations enable consistent performance, streamlined operations, improved compliance, and security enforcement throughout the organization.
Advantages of an optimized enterprise network
Always-on connectivity
A well-designed enterprise network provides the proper connectivity for all users, things, devices, and applications present in an organization, as appropriate for the role, purpose, and location of each.
Optimized user experience
An enterprise network can help improve the user experience through proactive network optimization, faster issue resolution, proper prioritization of essential traffic, and helping to ensure security and privacy.
Readiness for digital transformation
An enterprise network can be designed to support digital initiatives needed to quickly adapt to rapidly evolving needs, including expansion, scaling, growth, and introduction of new services.
Easier network management
Network management tools such as network controllers give administrators the ability to set access rules and permissions for users and departments, add new users or functions easily, and monitor performance and take corrective action, all from a central interface.
Enhanced security
In addition to security applications and devices, such as firewalls and secure Internet gateways, an enterprise network becomes a primary detector of threats and an enforcer of security and compliance. It does so with device identification, profiling, and verification, network monitoring, authentication, access controls, segmentation, and device and account management.
Flexible software subscriptions
Enterprise networks that use subscription-based licensing get continuous access to the latest networking and security innovations. They are better able to keep pace with their expanding demands as technologies and requirements change.
Seamless cloud integration
As more and more data and applications are developed, deployed, and delivered across multiple public clouds, enterprise networks provide seamless connectivity between users and cloud applications. They also optimize workloads between on-premises locations and public clouds.
Trends in enterprise networking
Higher speeds
Wi-Fi 6, 5G, and newly opened frequency bands for ultra-fast, short-range transmissions are enabling access to high-speed wireless connectivity for more users and IoT devices in more settings. At the same time, 400 Gbps is the new standard for high-speed data center networks. These innovations are spurring productivity enhancements and continued innovation across organizations.
Automated and intelligent networks
Increasingly, network management is being automated, with software that can recognize connected devices, profile them, and determine whether they can be trusted. They can detect performance problems or potential threats and respond automatically. Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and machine reasoning (MR) are now making networks smarter by adapting to the unique needs of each organization and customizing recommendations.
Intent-based networks
More and more enterprises are aligning their networks to intent-based networking (IBN) principles. Intent-based networks use advanced analytics along with software-defined networking (SDN)-based automation to continuously align network performance to changing business needs. They capture business intent, translate it into policies that can be applied consistently across the network, and continuously monitor and adjust network performance to help achieve desired business outcomes.
Zero-trust networks
Widespread mobility and cloud adoption require an enhanced approach to protecting users, applications, and data. A zero-trust security framework helps to prevent unauthorized access, contain breaches, and reduce the risk of an attacker's lateral movement through the network.