For businesses, restructuring their network infrastructure is advisable as part of a successful Office 365 implementation. This is the finding of a recent study conducted by the independent research firm TechValidate, which was commissioned by our new partner Zscaler.
The study “Challenges and Opportunities in Enterprise Office 365 Deployments” highlights the challenges companies face when migrating to Office 365 and the measures they have taken to increase user satisfaction and network performance.
A summary of the study's findings:
- A study of more than 200 IT decision-makers and staff highlights network challenges associated with the implementation of Microsoft Office 365.
- Two-thirds of the companies surveyed upgraded their firewalls, yet 69 percent continued to report latency issues after implementation.
- As a result, 70 percent of the companies planned to implement local Internet breakouts at their branch offices to enable direct and faster Internet access and bandwidth management.
With Office 365, Microsoft offers a cloud-based service featuring powerful features and tools designed to boost productivity. However, after implementation, many companies do not reap the expected benefits but instead report latency issues.
Office 365 was often implemented into existing network structures organized in the traditional hub-and-spoke style. These are usually unable to meet the network requirements of Office 365, which necessitates providing up to 20 internet connections per user.
To ensure a successful Office 365 migration, decentralized private access points have proven effective. This allows for better management of the network traffic generated by cloud applications. It is advisable to plan for a network transformation as part of the Office 365 migration; otherwise, follow-up costs must be anticipated.
