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Network Infrastructure Magazine | Friday, April 21, 2023
Today, equipment shortages are a significant concern for organizations, and equipment shortages have surpassed previous records in every network category and type of device.
FREMONT, CA: Equipment shortages across all network categories and device types have broken records. It has affected many equipment purchasers, including businesses that are—developing new network nodes, opting for equipment upkeep and replacement, adopting a model of just-in-time delivery, and intent on adopting a cloud-native architecture.
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The high demand for chips, which are used in virtually all types of network equipment, is one of the major causes of the equipment shortage. During the pandemic, the deficiency of these vital substances skyrocketed. Longer lead times are associated with larger and more complex data centers devices, such as distribution switches, large WAN edge devices, routers, and SD-WAN equipment. Most businesses need help to scale back their network upgrade and expansion plans.
HOW TO ADDRESS A DEFICIENCY IN NETWORK EQUIPMENT
Lead times are increasing, and businesses need more patience. They must satisfy the requirements and hardware equipment shortage.
What then?
Here are some methods for organizations to overcome the equipment shortage:
Optimize existing assets: One of the best methods for addressing the network equipment shortage is to optimize existing investments. Most enterprise network devices operate at less than 75 percent port capacity. By consolidating connectivity, organizations can free up 10 percent to 15 percent of switches for increased utilization of existing resources by reducing excess capacity. However, freeing up switching capacity via this method necessitates re-cabling, active labor, and more.
Move to the cloud: By moving their workloads to the cloud, organizations can overcome the equipment shortage. This eliminates the need to purchase switches and other network equipment. In addition to moving to host or public cloud providers, network appliances with a low number of interfaces, such as routers, firewalls, and load balancers, can mitigate the impact. Moving to the cloud requires no additional infrastructure expenditures. However, service providers may offer prohibitively expensive pricing models.
Employ strategic purchasing: Vendors prioritize customers with greater revenue potential in the current market environment. Organizations wishing to acquire services expeditiously and without friction must demonstrate to vendors how their business can contribute to the vendor's revenue stream. This requires no or only minor modifications to the current operational models.
Explore certified refurbished equipment: Most vendors offer official refurbished equipment programs consistent with the circular economy and sustainability. This can significantly reduce lead times to days or weeks. Some highly experienced and dependable refurbishing vendors can fully refurbish, recertify, and provide support for the hardware. They offer solutions and services that can extend the life of your IT equipment. This entire procedure is both economical and environmentally friendly.
Adopt sustainable hardware refresh techniques: Refreshing hardware is one of the most dependable ways to address network equipment shortages. The average organization replaces its IT hardware months before it arrives at the end of its useful life. Hardware refresh refers to replacing existing or obsolete hardware with the newest or latest version to improve performance and capacity.
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