In our previous blog, we discussed how internet applications were prevalent in enterprises of all shapes and sizes and how this growing usage was creating challenges for IT and NetOps. In this and subsequent blogs we’ll examine how applications are used in various segments of the economy and how organizations are responding to the respective challenges inherent in various use cases.
One unique example is higher education, namely the thousands of colleges and universities around the world. Much has been made of the digital transformation in enterprise, but the transformation is equally profound in education. Post-COVID, colleges and universities have worked feverishly to deliver more and more digital education experiences through multiple learning platforms and applications.
For NetOps and IT organizations, this means both a greater demand for performance as well as a greater threat to university data and student privacy. Striking a balance between enabling next-gen experiences and keeping the network secure is especially challenging when serving a user base as diverse as students, faculty, and administrators.
Reflecting the importance of these often-conflicting objectives, a recent Sandvine survey of our 200+ higher ed customers revealed that the highest priority IT initiatives were “Network Cybersecurity” and “Network Performance and QoE”.
To balance these priorities, it’s important to understand not only traffic volumes, but also the composition of that traffic. For example, what non-educational applications might be responsible for slowing down essential traffic? Is “guest traffic” interfering with student traffic? Are the videos streaming across the campus network recorded classes or Netflix movies?
Without adequate network observability, IT often has a difficult time identifying, prioritizing, and managing traffic to avoid congestion and ensure a satisfactory QoE, on top of filtering and mitigating security threats.
A deeper understanding of network traffic can help IT and NetOps maximize the use of existing network resources – saving precious budget dollars – and ensure a positive QoE for users. It can also help them troubleshoot or even predict problems that may compromise QoE, productivity, or security.
Sandvine AppLogic in Higher Ed
Sandvine has developed a solution to identify not only the applications affecting networks, but also the nature of the content within those applications.
As we illustrate in our 2024 Global Internet Phenomena Report, Sandvine’s AppLogic identifies, classifies, and categorizes network traffic across 13 application categories and 11 content categories, helping university IT and networking teams improve planning accuracy and operations efficiency.
In addition to showing the impact different applications and content have on network resources and user experiences, AppLogic also distinguishes downstream traffic from upstream. This helps network planners better understand which workloads can tolerate a delay (asynchronous computing) and which cannot, as well as which workloads may require load balancing, quota management, or downstream protection.
The solution also provides enhanced visibility into “app volume per subscriber,” “app user volume,” and “app popularity” to give a more granular look at how different apps affect daily traffic volumes.
AppLogic’s detailed application identification, classification, and categorization can help IT and NetOps quickly and easily create policies to protect the network, manage congestion, and ensure students, faculty, and administrators enjoy the QoE they deserve.
To learn more about Sandvine’s Enterprise Solutions for higher education, watch this video and contact us for a demonstration.
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