IP networks, applications, and business services require a very high degree of availability and protection of information and data. Next-generation technologies will revolutionize the way networks and services are protected and managed.

Security is the key concern we witness in the area of information and content management. Many of NIKSUN’s, as well as other companies’, customers are highly concerned about data leakage, Intellectual Property (IP) leakage, and related security issues. Today’s globally integrated IP networks, applications, and services are tightly coupled. Understanding the complex interactions to ensure that the network, applications, and services are robust and secure requires a revolutionary and not just a traditional approach.

In the network place, the trend is moving away from infrastructure management to services and business management. It’s all becoming application driven. The more flexible the service you provide to your client, the more attractive the solution becomes. And then obviously, software as a service (SaaS) is also taking off within industry trends and fast becoming a legitimate business model.

Hosted solutions as a software services require the security and robustness of network, and services offering availability from anywhere to anyone 24x7. We may recall that people were hacking for fun some years ago; but now this has become a business, whether it is motivated by nationalistic sentiments or financial gains. Thus, protection against content leakage, denial of service and hackers (internal and external) are also important at multiple levels such as networks and applications.

Basically, sources of information and content will become, and are fast becoming, extremely widespread and rich. High-resolution video chat has become common nowadays, whereas it was a distant dream some years ago. IPTV will be here in a major way. Bandwidth to support these applications is also increasing whether it is wired or wireless. Therefore, appropriate management and security solution development and deployment also need to be planned simultaneously and executed accordingly. Obviously, once video becomes mainstream, you need 100s of GB of bandwidth to experience its full potential. The scale of management and security is exponentially increasing.

So, the major technology shift that is taking place is the delivery of high volume, high bandwidth real-time information. Hence, demands on the cores and the edges of the network are going to be extremely high. Management and security platforms need to be able to scale up at the same rate. Software only based management solutions are not going to be scalable. The future belongs to hybrid and embedded solutions that work in a high volume and high velocity environment of rich and varied applications.

Consolidation has become the tendency of the moment now in the industry. People are looking for solutions, and not for point products. Large companies are trying to provide consolidated solutions to their clients by acquiring smaller companies. Also, because the IPO market has not been extremely lucrative, a lot of smaller companies’ strategy tends to be acquisition based. Larger companies are picking up various portfolio companies that they can bundle up into solutions. This trend to offer solutions to the customer rather than a ‘point product’ will continue.

Any new entrepreneur who wants to make it big in this space should think at large scales: rates above 10-100GB, hundreds to thousands of services, and extremely fast switching. Any solution they are thinking of should scale at those levels. In the next five to ten years we’re going to have an explosion of inter-element communication that will go a long way in empowering the user. An ultra portable device in which phone, Ipod, and a powerful computer are integrated will become a reality soon. Entrepreneurs will need to have a clear perspective of the challenges of dealing with enormous amounts of data, services, and a high flow rate in this environment. One who can meet these challenges with a scalable solution approach will be the winner at the end of the day.