In recent years, cloud-managed Wi-Fi growth has been fueled by increased adoption in the midmarket and distributed enterprise (e.g., retail, K-12 education). "Enterprises are seeing the big picture and definitely considering cloud-managed Wi-Fi for their remote sites when upgrading their networks," said Rohit Mehra, Vice President, Network Infrastructure. "These upgraded network architectures can accommodate unique needs around bring your own device (BYOD), scalability, application visibility and management." Today, having a strong, robust wireless network is mandatory for enterprises, and the proliferation of BYOD and mission-critical network applications has helped drive new wireless LAN deployments within a growing number of enterprise segments. Cloud-managed Wi-Fi, with its central manageability, smaller physical footprint, and linear scalability, is a viable option for these enterprises.
Additional findings from IDC's research include the following:
- Leaner IT staffs are challenged with provisioning, troubleshooting, and maintaining more sophisticated networks.
- Cloud-managed Wi-Fi belies the prevailing trend in enterprise IT of "everything as a service".
- Vendors and channel partners are enabling simplified deployments through extensive managed services offerings.
- One of the most appealing benefits of cloud-managed Wi-Fi is the ability to provide automated provisioning and configuration.
- Delivering the network over the cloud helps shift spending from capex to opex.