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Webinar Series Highlights – Advancing Modern Work Through Microsoft Teams Part 1

CMMA Blog

Webinar Series Highlights – Advancing Modern Work Through Microsoft Teams Part 1

The way we work has changed forever. To adapt our old ways of working to the modern workplace, Microsoft Teams has become an integral tool to create seamless collaboration and communication experiences across locations and devices.

In our latest webinar series, Advancing Modern Work Through Microsoft Teams , Microsoft MVPs and Kollective experts explain how to get the most out of Microsoft Teams to increase communication, collaboration, and productivity. Hosted by Alistair Pugin , Microsoft Azure and M365 Apps & Services MVP, the four-episode series covers a range of topics:

Episode 1: Optimizing Your Network for Microsoft Teams
Episode 2: Empowering Collaboration with Microsoft Teams Devices
Episode 3: Developing Inclusive Communications Through Microsoft Teams
Episode 4: Supporting Neurodiversity with Microsoft Teams

In this article, we will briefly recap episodes one and two and highlight invaluable tips shared by the experts on how to optimize your workflow and efficiency within Microsoft Teams.

Episode 1: Optimizing Your Network for Microsoft Teams

Video communications are key to enabling modern work. Unprepared networks struggle to deliver high quality Microsoft Teams meetings, live events, and webinars.
In this episode, Alistair is joined by Nicolas Blank , Microsoft Azure and M365 Apps & Services MVP, and Kollective’s VP of Product, Garrett Gladden to discuss:

  • Preparing your connectivity options
  • How Teams handles audio and video calls
  • Where bottlenecks occur
  • How to analyze what your network looks like

Tips for Flawless Teams Video Communications

  1. Understand your network – Whether you are about to roll out Teams or your current user experience is not up to par, it is crucial to understand your network’s capabilities and if it is set up to deliver a quality experience through Teams.
  2. Understand what you need from Teams – Not all devices are created equal, and endpoint performance issues may cause poor user experiences. Examine the devices that are consuming Teams video on your network and understand the platform’s impact on the hardware.
  3. Utilize the tools from Microsoft – Microsoft’s Call Quality Dashboard shows you organization-wide call and meeting quality, and you can leverage Power BI to analyze that data.
  4. Know your options – Understand your access points and trace what PoP (point of presence) you are connecting through.
  5. Measure, change, then measure again – Analyze network performance, make changes, and measure again to see if there has been an improvement. Microsoft 365’s network connectivity test is an easy way to measure your network’s performance repeatedly. Be sure to compare the performance on home networks versus corporate networks versus a branch site to gain a complete picture.

Episode 2: Empowering Collaboration with Microsoft Teams Devices

Creating inclusive Teams meeting experiences when only some are physically present is a challenge for businesses offering hybrid or remote work options. Episode two focuses on the latest capabilities and features of Microsoft Teams-enabled devices to bridge the gap between the office and home.

Tom Arbuthnot , M365 Apps & Services MVP and Microsoft Communications Certified Master, takes you through:

  • Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro
  • IntelliFrame
  • Hotdesking
  • And more device ecosystem updates

In the clip below, Tom emphasizes the need for businesses to budget for reasonable devices for those working from home.


“Don’t scrimp on home devices. People are spending so long at home that if you’re impacting the meeting experience, you’re impacting everybody’s productivity.” – Tom Arbuthnot

Tips to Improve Work-from-Home Teams Meeting Experiences

  1. If you are on a tight budget, invest in audio over video.
  2. Logitech 930e webcam and a decent headset (wired or Bluetooth) is a great place to start. If you are looking to upgrade, consider Logitech’s Brio 4K webcam.
  3. Pay attention to your lighting set up. If you have poor lighting, consider a ring light to improve visibility.

Microsoft Teams has unlocked many doors for the modern workplace and allowed us to quickly adapt to changes in where, how, and even why we work. Navigating the Teams ecosystem and the options available can be daunting. The Microsoft MVPs who joined us for this series are a font of knowledge in all things Team related.

Stay tuned for part 2 where we recap episodes three and four or take a deep dive into each topic by watching the episodes on-demand.

The post Webinar Series Highlights – Advancing Modern Work Through Microsoft Teams Part 1 appeared first on Kollective Technology .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Introducing the World’s Only Smart ECDN

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Introducing the World’s Only Smart ECDN

Machine learning is revolutionizing modern business, improving efficiency while decreasing costs and increasing profits. According to a 2021 McKinsey survey , 56% of organizations today are using machine learning in at least one business function. In the same study, 27% of respondents attributed at least 5% of their earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to AI and machine learning.

At Kollective, we understand the power machine learning offers businesses, which is why we developed the world’s first and only Smart ECDN. In this article, we explore the specifics of our new intelligent solution and detail how simple managing your network has become.

What is Kollective’s Smart ECDN?

Kollective’s Smart ECDN was developed for one purpose – to radically simplify ECDN onboarding and management so that your network – consistently achieves peak performance. There’s not just one feature that makes this possible, but instead, a suite of intelligent solutions that work harmoniously to make the world’s first and only Smart ECDN. Five core features define Kollective’s Smart ECDN:

  1. Easy Activation
  2. Self-Service Network Topology Management
  3. Network Modeling
  4. Anomaly Detection
  5. Suggestive Analytics

Stress-Free Onboarding

Abstracting difficulty out of complex situations is a core function of a “smart” system. Kollective’s new onboarding wizard achieves this in spades, providing a fast and stress-free process for clients to configure their setup in five simple steps:

  1. Create an Account – Log in and authenticate with your Microsoft or G-Suite account.
  2. Configure Integrations – Select your integrations from an extensive list of the world’s leading front-end video applications and Kollective’s tool will walk you through how to quickly configure each to work with our ECDN.
  3. Define Network Configurations – While Kollective has terrific out-of-the-box settings that work well for most networks, our wizard allows users to customize their network settings quickly.
  4. Manage Privacy Settings – Enable custom privacy settings to control what data is collected.
  5. Invite Users & Complete Setup

Self-Service Network Topology Management

Whether your business is large or small, you understand that networks are complex. That is why Kollective has revolutionized how clients view and manage global network settings. Users can import all their network locations into our system to create self-service delivery parameters and unique network policies and behaviors for each.

With Kollective’s Smart ECDN, controlling your network has never been easier. Have offices in the DACH region that require different security settings than your offices in the Americas? Navigate to the “Network Locations” tab in the “Network Settings and Configuration” dashboard and create a unique policy for those locations.

Network Modeling

With any investment your business makes, it is crucial to understand the value you receive in return. That is why Kollective developed the Rapid Network Test (RNT) – to allow businesses to simulate how Kollective performs when networks experience a high volume of concurrent video streams.

While the RNT reveals if your network is ready to peer, Kollective’s Smart ECDN ensures that your network performs at its peak efficiency by running silent tests that construct a detailed model of your optimal network, providing the data it needs e to improve continuously. With Kollective’s Smart ECDN, you don’t need to be an IT expert to configure your network to stream flawless live videos. Model your network before running your first event and stream with confidence.

Smart Diagnostics

While Kollective’s network modeling optimizes your network before an event, our diagnostic dashboards provide ongoing support to identify and resolve issues as they arise. Our smart ECDN achieves this by using anomaly detection and machine learning to surface insights from past events to make future ones perform better.

Kollective’s solution delivers excellent results out-of-the-box, but we do not settle anything but the best. Our intelligent diagnostics stems from our broader philosophy to constantly refine and improve our processes to deliver the best product on the market. By detecting anomalies in your network through our diagnostics dashboard, Kollective’s Smart ECDN ensures that your network will be ready to meet the challenges as your business continues to evolve and grow.

What is Anomaly Detection?

One of the most powerful factors of Kollective’s smart diagnostics is its ability to recognize anomalies in your network. Our machine-learning protocols examine patterns of data playback that meet certain expectations. When something unexpected happens on your network, our anomaly detection algorithms recognize aberrant behavior based on indicators versus normal behavior and flag the event. These reports are the final pillar of our Smart ECDN, suggestive analytics.

Suggestive Analytics

When an event is flagged for aberrant behavior in Kollective’s smart diagnostics dashboard, our system analyzes the precise cause. It then alerts you to where the problem occurred in your network, what users were affected, and how to solve it so it does not happen again. Below are a few examples of problems that might occur and how quickly Kollective’s Smart ECDN will identify and solve them through the power of automation.

  1. Bitrate Thrash – One locality is having a poor event because too many bitrates were requested (e.g. 10). Kollective’s system would flag the event in the diagnostics dashboard, identifying that location with the recommendation that bitrate is pinned on that area of your network.
  2. Excessive Stalling – One locality is experiencing lengthy buffering during an event because peering nodes are stalling. Kollective would flag this event, and our suggestive analytics would recommend adjusting the performance settings in that location to “peering,” so more segments of a stream are built up before the video is peered to others on the node.

Experience the World’s Only Smart ECDN

Machine learning and AI adoption continue to climb as businesses steadily uncover their potential. Kollective’s Smart ECDN is our first step into this realm as we continue to seek new and innovative ways to create the best possible experience for our customers. Try Kollective today and experience the power of the only ECDN that constantly optimizes your network for peak performance.

The post Introducing the World’s Only Smart ECDN appeared first on Kollective Technology .

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Enterprise Content Delivery Network Adoption is on the Rise

CMMA Blog

Enterprise Content Delivery Network Adoption is on the Rise

A recent white paper from research firm Metrigy, Enterprise Content Delivery Networks: For Video, and Beyond , found that enterprise content delivery network (ECDN) adoption has more than doubled since 2020 amongst the 900 organizations they surveyed. ECDNs are being used more than ever to deliver live video and are an essential tool for driving modern work. In this post we will highlight the key findings from the white paper, the reasons leading to the rise in ECDN adoption and factors enterprises need to consider when selecting an ECDN.

The Modern Workplace

Spurred by the pandemic, live video use has grown dramatically across organizations in all verticals. Nearly half of companies (45%) surveyed by Metrigy continued to increase video use through the end of Q3 of 2021, with no signs of slowing down. While at times challenging, the adoption of modern tools like live video has fueled a revolution in how and where we work. The office walls have been torn down and the modern workplace is now more digital than physical.

With the rise of hybrid and remote work, dispersed teams require a digital-first approach to effectively communicate and collaborate with one another. The simplest way to efficiently accomplish this is through live video. Metrigy’s study reinforces this reality, with 85% of respondents saying that video is either critical or important to their business’ operations.
video importance to business operations
From company-wide town halls to less formal announcements and daily meetings, video is the way information is shared. Ensuring messages are received is imperative for every business. With over 80% of Metrigy’s study participants using cloud-based meetings, webinars, and virtual event platforms, a network that is not optimized for delivering video is a liability.

New Network Architecture

The increase in demand for live video has caused the architecture of enterprise networks to be reimagined. In the past, poor network performance was often solved by “throwing bandwidth at the problem”– an inefficient, costly, and temporary solution. Video and other cloud-based applications require a more forward-thinking approach to solve performance issues economically and efficiently. By solving these issues on both fronts, it’s no surprise that ECDN adoption has consistently grown.

Metrigy found that successful businesses invest in expanded network services to support video with success being defined as those experiencing a higher return from their video investments.
network investment to support video
As with “throwing bandwidth at the problem”, blindly tossing money at network problems is not the answer. By investing in network technologies that work smarter, like ECDNs, companies not only improve network performance but also find significant cost savings. Metrigy’s research showed that participants using an ECDN to optimize video delivery saved an average of 22% annually on WAN costs.

While the cost savings and high ROI make ECDNs an attractive choice, their ability to meet the needs of enterprise networks plays a strong role in their growing popularity. Metrigy outlined eight requirements network services must meet to support the modern workplace:

  1. Improve network performance no matter the location, network access ability, or available bandwidth
  2. Optimize networks in a simple and intelligent manner that does not put added strain on network operators
  3. Reduced upfront and ongoing costs
  4. Provide analytics with insights into viewer experience, network performance, and engagement
  5. Securely distribute content with end-to-end encryption and access management
  6. Deploy quickly and easily to support ongoing digital initiatives
  7. Integration with existing network management platforms
  8. Ability to scale to keep pace with emerging and future collaboration technologies

Unlike traditional solutions, ECDNs can meet all these requirements–another reason adoption is growing Therefore, it’s no surprise that the majority of companies (60%) surveyed by Metrigy are using or plan to use an ECDN. Out of the companies with ECDNs in place, nearly half (44%) are planning to increase their use.
ECDN adoption plans

Critical Considerations

While there are many ECDNs on the market, not all are created equal. Metrigy recommends looking for these features when selecting an ECDN:

  • Flexible deployment models
  • Deep performance and engagement analytics
  • Native integration with video streaming platforms

Kollective’s ECDN, Edge Accelerator meets all these features and more. It is the only ECDN platform that offers complete coverage, ensuring high quality live video in simple and complex environments. From Zero Trust to traversing the Great Firewall of China, as your business’ needs grow, Kollective’s ECDN delivers. Kollective’s easy-to-use integration portal allows businesses to use their favorite streaming platform and our powerful analytics and intelligence platform supplies real-time, actionable event insights.

Kollective seamlessly integrates with front-end video applications like Microsoft Teams and Stream, Notified, NTT Studio, Qumu, Vimeo and more, to reliably deliver flawless live and on-demand video without affecting other business critical applications.

Kollective IQ/Edge IQ is the most advanced ECDN intelligence platform. Intuitive and customizable dashboards give insights into employee engagement, congestion levels across locations, and real-time event and network performance allowing quicker decision-making to address issues.

Optimize with an ECDN

The unique ability of ECDNs to optimize video delivery in a cost-effective, scalable, and easy to implement manner paired with the increasing use of video across the enterprise will continue to drive their adoption and make them an essential part of the modern business’s technology stack.

Choosing the right ECDN to meet the unique needs of your network is vital to ensuring a quality employee experience across locations, devices, and connections. Kollective’s Edge Accelerator offers the flexibility to cover even the most complex enterprise networks. Begin a free 30-day trial of Kollective ECDN Browser-Based peering to start scaling live video today.

The post Enterprise Content Delivery Network Adoption is on the Rise appeared first on Kollective Technology .

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Network Volatility in the Modern Workplace

CMMA Blog

Network Volatility in the Modern Workplace

Enterprise communications and IT teams that previously had success delivering events to fully remote audiences during the pandemic are facing challenges as employees return to the office. In flexible work models, employees do not come to the office as frequently as they did before pandemic. However, when they do come, it is often en masse and unpredictable, creating peak demand problems for networks. Network volatility like this is becoming a common phenomenon that enterprises across all verticals are experiencing.

What is Network Volatility?

Network volatility occurs when there is a shifting number of concurrent streams running across a corporate network. In the hybrid work model, the number of employees working in an office on a given day is in constant flux. On low-demand days when fewer people are on-site, networks may perform well enough to deliver video to employees without trouble. However, on high-demand days when in-person attendance is greater, networks not equipped with an ECDN are pushed beyond their limits. When this occurs, live events fail and business-critical cloud applications crash, leaving leadership and employees frustrated.

Network Volatility Case Study

To better illustrate network volatility in the hybrid world, we’ll explore typical Teams Live Event consumption for a Fortune 500 Kollective customer during July 2022. This company has a strong global presence, with offices spread throughout EMEA, APAC, and the Americas.

The graph below presents the day-to-day variance of Teams Live Event viewership for one office in the Americas. For most days in July, fewer than one hundred employees consumed live video on-site. However, on six separate days in July, several hundred employees streamed live events from the office, including one day in which on-site viewership nearly crested three thousand. If this office had not been equipped with Kollective’s ECDN, their network would have faced complications on each day when on-site viewership topped one hundred and would have suffered a complete failure when it nearly exceeded three thousand.

Network Volatility in the Americas

Our next example within this company takes us halfway around the world to an office in APAC. For most days in July, several hundred-person live events were streamed on-site. There were nine days where on-site viewership surpassed five hundred, including two days where it topped eight hundred and one thousand three hundred, respectively. Notice that while the average in-person attendance and the days of highest attendance vary between this office and the one in the Americas, both offices experience highly varied on-site video consumption and a high level of network volatility over a short timeframe.

Network Volatility in APAC

Network Volatility is Inevitable in the Modern Workplace

In hybrid work models, network volatility is unavoidable – it’s not a question of if, but when. For businesses with a lower baseline of in-person attendees, it’s easy for leaders to develop false faith in their network’s ability to successfully deliver live video. Take the three offices in the graph below as an example. For four days during the week, a relatively low number of employees stream video at each office. However, each office also experiences one day in which in-person viewership spikes well above their day-to-day norm.

This phenomenon represents the reality that businesses are confronted with in the modern workplace. While these offices may have been able to successfully deliver video without an ECDN on the days when fewer streams were consumed in-office, their networks would have collapsed on the days when consumption spiked. With an ECDN, however, this is not a problem. ECDNs are not only a cost-effective and secure solution, but one that businesses can rapidly deploy across the enterprise to ensure that when their network experiences volatility, they can still depend on it to reliably deliver video to all employees.

Network volatility in multiple offices over one week

Small Offices are Not Immune

In the examples above, we explored network volatility in large offices. While network spikes in large offices may seem more significant, volatility in small offices can be equally problematic. In the graph below, one of this company’s smaller offices in EMEA experiences two days in July when in-person viewership crests one hundred and six days above fifty. These spikes are not as dramatic as the ones we presented above but can have a similar impact on an office of this size. Whether an office is large or small, its infrastructure is very rarely built to natively supply the bandwidth required to deliver concurrent video to all potential on-site employees during company wide live events. A cost-effective solution like an ECDN can alleviate bandwidth issues for offices of all sizes.

Small office teams live events in EMEA

No Matter How Volatile the Network, Kollective Delivers

These examples are not unique – offices throughout this organization and others experience network volatility on a regular basis. Without Kollective’s ECDN, the network would have failed to deliver live events on the days when on-site viewership spiked. It’s also important to note that this is not a company that has fully returned to the office, but one that is embracing the flexibility of hybrid work.

Network volatility is an unavoidable reality in the modern workplace. It can create frustration and roadblocks for organizations which can easily be avoided by putting an ECDN in place. ECDNs ensure that as people return to the office, the network is empowered and able to successfully deliver live video to all employees, regardless of their location. Ease the transition to hybrid work and provide your business with the confidence that your network will always work.

The post Network Volatility in the Modern Workplace appeared first on Kollective Technology .

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Video Consumption Continues to Rise. Is Your Network Prepared?

CMMA Blog

Video Consumption Continues to Rise. Is Your Network Prepared?

With 270 million monthly active users , usage of Microsoft Teams and its live video capabilities has risen dramatically in the past two years. While return to office movements have made in-person meetings more frequent, the prevalence of hybrid working has continued to propel the growth of live video as companies seek better ways to connect their dispersed teams. As 74% of U.S. businesses currently have or are planning permanent hybrid options, video will remain a central part of the modern workplace and pivotal to the digital experience of all employees. The ongoing boom in virtual communications makes it more important than ever to ensure enterprise networks can meet the increase in demand for digital collaboration tools.

Teams and Live Video Usage Continues to Climb

How many Teams meetings do you have on your calendar right now? Chances are it is significantly greater than the number of meetings you had two years ago. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index 2022 found that Teams users have experienced a 252% increase in weekly meeting time and a 153% increase in the number of weekly meetings since February of 2020.

Kollective’s usage statistics for live video mirror Microsoft’s findings. Between Q2 and Q4 of 2020, live events delivered by Kollective increased by 187%. During that same timeframe in 2021, growth continued at a similar rate with a 170% increase in live video and a 92% increase in Teams Live Events.

Over the past two years, Kollective observed that the rise in live video usage is global – a trend that can be seen across all regions:

  • Americas – 130% increase (2.1x growth)
  • EMEA – 156% increase (2.6x growth)
  • APAC – 264% increase (3.6x growth)

Live Video Enables the Hybrid Office

The return to office has been reimagined and hybrid work models are being widely adopted to meet the needs of both businesses and employees. A July 2022 study by McKinsey found that 58% of U.S. workers currently have the option to work remotely or on-site. The prevalence of flexible working has placed more pressure on businesses to facilitate effective communications between employees at different physical locations. Whether it is day-to-day team meetings or large-scale corporate communications, live video has become integral to connecting employees and fostering collaboration and communication in the modern workplace.

Hybrid Networks at Risk

While Teams and live video offer businesses the opportunity to enable hybrid work, its success depends on the quality of each user’s experience. As a bandwidth-intensive medium, video can overtax unprepared networks and cause excessive buffering, jittery streams, or event failures. During larger events like All-Hands, viewers in locations with insufficient bandwidth may not experience the same event quality as those working remotely. These poor experiences lower engagement, reduce productivity and derail communication efforts.

Exacerbating this problem is a phenomenon known as network volatility. Network volatility is caused by the ever-shifting number of concurrent streams running across corporate networks. In a hybrid scenario, the number of people working in the office on a given day is in constant flux. While networks may perform well on days with low employee attendance, high-demand days push the limits of a network’s capacity and cause live event failures and business-critical cloud applications to perform poorly or, in the worst-case scenario, total network failure. However, even a relatively small number of employees streaming live video in an office can cause problems for networks that are not equipped with an ECDN.

ECDNs Prevent Network Failures

Adding an enterprise content delivery network (ECDN) to your technology infrastructure is a simple and cost-effective way to optimize networks for live video. An ECDN reduces the bandwidth needed to deliver high-quality video, allowing you to securely scale communications across the enterprise.

As flexible workplaces often bring added network complexities, not all ECDNs can meet the needs of the hybrid office. Kollective’s ECDN, Edge Accelerator, offers the complete coverage necessary to meet the needs of modern networks. With three content delivery methods built under the same architecture, Kollective offers the flexibility to handle even the most complex network environments and ensures that every employee receives flawless video.

Preparing for a return to the office, Michelin, the world’s largest tire manufacturer, added Kollective to optimize their network for Teams video distribution. Since implementing Kollective in 2021, they have run over 1,300 Teams Live Events reaching over 50,000 people globally with a total bandwidth savings of 60% in every region. Their employees rely on high-quality video communications with no impact on their network.

As the numbers show, Microsoft Teams and Teams Live Events are being utilized on a massive scale to connect people and organizations across the globe. The hybrid office’s dependence on video will continue to fuel that growth, putting unprepared networks at risk. Investing in an ECDN like Kollective’s Edge Accelerator will ensure your network can support your hybrid workforce and deliver a flawless digital experience to all employees.

The post Video Consumption Continues to Rise. Is Your Network Prepared? appeared first on Kollective Technology .

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The Rise of Zero Trust Networks

CMMA Blog

The Rise of Zero Trust Networks

In the past two years, we have witnessed a rapid evolution in cybersecurity and a rise in Zero Trust security as a top priority for organizations across the globe. With the shift to remote and hybrid work models, businesses must adapt to support employees working in locations beyond the perimeter of the corporate network. Increased prevalence of cloud-based services, the internet of things (IoT), and the growing sophistication of cyberattacks has caused business leaders to adopt more robust security protocols.

In response to these changes, the adoption of Zero Trust security models has skyrocketed across diverse markets and industries. In their report titled, “The State of Zero Trust Security 2021 ,” identity management firm Okta found that Zero Trust has increased in priority for 78% of businesses. Microsoft’s 2021 “Zero Trust Adoption Report ” echoed these sentiments, stating, “Security decision-makers (SDMs) say developing a Zero Trust strategy is their #1 security priority, with 96% saying it’s critical to their organization’s success.”

As more businesses switch to Zero Trust security models, software solutions they rely on must perform and comply with these new security practices. Kollective’s Edge Accelerator was built with Zero Trust security in mind, allowing businesses to scale content delivery in evolving network environments.

This article will review the basics of Zero Trust, the factors leading to the increase in Zero Trust adoption, where adoption is occurring, and how Kollective enables businesses with Zero Trust networks.

What is Zero Trust?

Zero Trust is a security model based on the principle: “never trust, always verify.” In Zero Trust networks, no device is trusted by default. Users must be authenticated, authorized and continually validated before being granted access to applications and data, whether they are inside or outside the organization’s network.

Zero Trust networks redefine the traditional understanding of the network edge. In Zero Trust frameworks, networks can be local, in the cloud, or a combination of the two – supporting workers in any location. With pushes towards digital transformation, Zero Trust allows businesses to ad dress the challenges of the modern office, including securing remote employees and hybrid cloud environments.

Hybrid Work is Driving Zero Trust Adoption

Zero Trust models have been a part of the enterprise for over a decade. Google implemented Zero Trust architecture into their security model as far back as 2009. The growth of Zero Trust strategies in the 2010s was slow, but has accelerated over the past three years. The increase was fueled by the rise of mobile computing, the internet of things (IoT), and cloud-based services, and the pandemic only amplified these problems. Existing challenges and the subsequent shift to remote and hybrid workplaces have driven Zero Trust adoption to record highs as leadership seeks better ways to safeguard systems and data as employees access them off-site and through personal devices.

Business leaders confirmed that the move to hybrid work models accelerated their Zero Trust timelines. In a poll of over 600 global security leaders, Okta found that the challenges of hybrid work caused businesses to become “more security conscious” and forced them to prioritize Zero Trust strategies. As a result, most companies (90%) are actively pursuing Zero Trust initiatives, up from 41% in 2020. While many companies are still determining how to integrate Zero Trust frameworks, Microsoft found that implementation is well underway – “76% of organizations have at least started implementing a Zero Trust strategy with 35% claiming to be fully implemented.”

Zero Trust Adoption Varies by Industry

While Zero Trust initiatives have increased across all industries, Okta discovered that adoption varies among key verticals. Highly regulated industries, like financial services, lead other verticals in their use of Zero Trust, with 94% reporting they already have Zero Trust frameworks in place or “have aggressive goals to get there.” Other industries with notable pushes towards Zero Trust include healthcare and software. Almost one-third (30%) of healthcare organizations stated that Zero Trust is now a top priority compared to 17% globally. While software companies like Microsoft and Google implemented Zero Trust models, only 9% of software organizations have a Zero Trust initiative currently in place. However, the industry is poised for change as nearly 4 in 5 plan to adopt initiatives by the end of next year.

EMEA Experiences the Largest Increase in Zero Trust Initiatives

In Okta’s report, they found that at least 87% of APAC, EMEA, and North American organizations have defined Zero Trust initiatives in place or plan to start them in the next 12-18 months. While all regions saw substantial increases in adoption since 2020, the most significant jump occurred in EMEA where Zero Trust initiatives grew by a factor of five.

Increase in Zero Trust Initiatives by Region

  • APAC: 50% (2020) to 91% (2021)
  • EMEA: 18% (2020) to 90% (2021)
  • North America: 60% (2020) to 87% (2021)

Kollective Supports Zero Trust Networks

Secure by design. Creating an effective security design requires a comprehensive security policy woven into every layer of a solution, addressing present threats and future concerns. That is how Kollective’s Edge Accelerator was architected – with security in mind from conception to release, ensuring the highest degree of protection for your data.

Zero Trust with Kollective. As more businesses adopt Zero Trust frameworks, solutions must adhere to their security standards. Kollective’s Edge Accelerator provides best-in-class content delivery mechanisms and offers advanced security controls to support networks operating in Zero Trust environments. Learn more about Kollective’s security .

Performance without Security Risks. In Microsoft’s study, overall security and the end-user experience were the primary motivators for organizations adopting Zero Trust frameworks. These priorities are directly in line with Kollective’s goals – to flawlessly deliver content to any user in any location securely. Kollective’s Edge Accelerator handles the most diverse network needs, from delivering video to China to supporting hybrid workplaces with complex network environments. Kollective provides businesses with flexibility and the confidence that their network will always work.

Talk to an expert today to see how Kollective’s ECDN solutions excel in Zero Trust network environments.

The post The Rise of Zero Trust Networks appeared first on Kollective Technology .

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