BARRACUDA Survey: 52 percent of companies say increasing device, data and remote usage is impacting their network security

Companies struggle to cope with changing demands in data-intensive, mobile and remote workforce

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, 16 January 2014 – Barracuda Networks, Inc. (NYSE: CUDA), a leading provider of cloud-connected security and storage solutions, today shared that approximately 52 percent companies admitted that managing application performance, availability and security is a significant problem due to a “disjointed, complex and hard-to-manage” environment.

The survey by Freeform Dynamics on behalf of Barracuda, set out to identify the key issues affecting the performance of critical business applications. The survey of more than 400 small, mid and large-sized enterprises, highlighted a fast discrepancy between the capabilities of their network infrastructures and what network administrators need to do their jobs effectively. The findings indicated that many business networks are showing signs of stress when trying to keep up with the demands of the modern workplace.

“Everything is increasing – the traffic, the data, the access points, and the number of users and devices,” said Thiban Darmalingam, the Regional Manager for Barracuda in Malaysia.

“The survey results underpin how important it is for companies to consider all of these points in order to scale their network infrastructure,” he adds. According to the survey 50 percent of respondents said that the increase in people working from home or remotely is impacting traffic on the corporate network.

Highlights from the survey results include:
• Just over one-fifth (21 percent) said employees connecting remotely are generating very high or high amounts of traffic on the network. Approximately 76 percent of those surveyed expect the load from employees connecting remotely to be higher or much higher within three years.
• The vast majority (84 percent) cited current or future changes in working patterns as increasing the challenge associated with application access and security.
• More than half (52 percent) of those surveyed admit their network is a disjointed, complex and hard-to-manage environment, which impacts the ability to deliver consistent application performance, availability and security.

“The Survey also indicated that poor or unpredictable application performance causes a problem, or acts as a distraction for almost two-thirds (65 percent) of those surveyed. Application outages, impact business, causing disruption in 64 percent of the businesses surveyed,” adds Thiban.

In addition to performance and availability issues, those surveyed also indicated that changes in work patterns and user expectations are impacting both information and application security. Almost two-thirds (63 percent) stated that changes in how data is used and moved pose a significant challenge when it comes to the security of accessing applications.

“The survey highlights one important point, changes in working trends are being led by employees rather than the IT department. This change combined with the expected increase in network loads from core applications, virtualization, collaboration systems and data intensive advanced communications systems further indicate a need to prepare networks to meet these rapidly escalating demands,” Thiban points out.

Change in mind-set for security needed

Respondents believe these issues will only increase in the future and recognise a need for change with 81 percent of respondents recognising the need to move away from the “network perimeter” mind-set for security and embrace an “application perimeter” approach.

Today, network perimeters are ill defined as remote workers, mobile devices, partners, customers and suppliers try to access company resources that have traditionally resided behind a corporate network firewall. Thiban adds, “If you have too many holes in a wall, it gets really hard to keep the bad guys out and the important/critical data in.”

One way of dealing with the combination of application performance and security challenges is to deploy Application Delivery Controller (ADC) type solutions. In this respect, the survey results are consistent with the mainstream market for ADCs being reasonably new, and knowledge and awareness being relatively limited, with just 27 percent of respondents having a form of ADC solution in place.

The Barracuda ADC platform addresses core problems associated with an overloaded and inefficient network and access infrastructure.