OREANDA-NEWS. February 01, 2018. Here are four key areas that Verizon Partner Solutions has identified as trends to watch in 2018. 
  1. Flexible Networks:  With networks continuing to evolve, we’re seeing a major shift in thinking around the importance of network and infrastructure ownership. As a result, service providers will experience an increased deployment of open-access networking and hosting structure. In addition, with software defined networking (SDN) deployments now live around the globe, companies are beginning to explore what they can really do with the security, agility and flexibility of virtualized network services. We think the next big thing in this space will be application-aware networking – the objective being to manage the performance, capabilities and security of applications to make the most of bandwidth.
  2. Measuring the Effectiveness of Security: We also know there will be a continued focus on security. From our point of view, we think that security will increasingly be embedded into the platform. Measuring security effectiveness will therefore also be an imperative, so that cyber-risks can be integrated into any enterprise risk assessment. 
  3. Scalable, Global Solutions:  One trend that is irrefutable is that the increasing complexity and interdependence of telecoms, technology and media have intensified the need for wholesale services. Consequently, we’re seeing greater demand for network solutions that are both flexible and scalable enough to deal with not only technology trends today, but also whatever the future holds.
  4. Customer Experience Journey Transformation: We also think that digital technologies will begin to transform collaboration in 2018. Organizations are thinking hard about how they can deliver multi-channel access to improve both user experience and productivity. Software-defined networking will play a role here, facilitating intelligent data management and multi-platform call routing for more effective collaboration.