A new study has revealed that although a significant number of companies still backhaul branch office Internet traffic hundreds or thousands of miles to a remote data center or headquarters over private or semi-private data lines, a growing number of companies have established local Internet service at the branch and receive direct Internet access there.
The study, which was released by WAN Application Delivery and Security Web Gateway provider Blue Coat Systems, surveyed some 1,100 Asia Pacific companies regarding branch office Internet access, work force mobilization and consolidation of datacenters.
The results showed that over 40% of the respondents surveyed for the study indicated their companies provide their branch offices with direct Internet access, rather than ”backhaul” the Internet traffic across a Wide Area Network (WAN) to a centralized Internet gateway in the headquarters or regional data center.
Some companies have local Internet access, but route all corporate traffic directly to headquarters or a data center using a site-to-site VPN, which serves as the WAN link, and do not allow access to the Web in the local branch office.
“We see a significant number of companies that either have branch offices with direct Internet access or are in the process of migrating to such access, rather than relying on backhauling that traffic to a centralized access point across the WAN,” said Matt Young, vice president, Asia Pacific, Blue Coat Systems.
“Companies are rejecting the high cost and inefficiencies of backhauling Internet traffic. With Blue Coat appliances, companies can gain ‘direct-to-the-net’ branch office access while maintaining consistent, centrally-managed security and control by using the same appliance that provides WAN optimization. We enable companies to migrate away from backhauling to direct Internet connections in the branch.”
Respondents to the survey included IT professionals from companies in Australia, Bangladesh, Greater China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines,Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan. |
