Dec 29, 2016 08:00 AM EST By Erwin Castro, UniversityHerald Reporter

Enterprise networking world made a mark this 2016 and the industry has made some great strides in digital transformation while tech companies have been at the bleeding edge of this innovation. But 2017 offers a much bigger picture, as the rapid adoption of smartphones and the introduction of the Internet of Things.

The spread of network function virtualization (NFV), the expansion of software-defined networking (SDN) and the Internet of Things are just a few of the developments that the world can expect to see in the enterprise networking sector next year.

1. Redesigned WAN Architecture: Many of today's businesses and organizations are moving their computing resources and applications to the cloud, and this has added some significant changes to their current WAN architecture. The traditional networking setting will be augmented or in some cases replaced by a new method, by points-of-presence hosted in co-lo networking facilities. This means that there is no longer need for back-haul cloud-destined traffic to the data center and then to the internet.

2. Network Function Virtualization Will Finally Come To Life: Virtualization will always be a hot IT topic these days. NFV will spread from service providers to the enterprise, the change will allow companies to more easily provision, chain and scale branch network services.

3. The Internet of Things (IoT) In Full Swing: IoT has just started to gain traction and has become widely used in the operational technology part of the organization. According to CIO-Today, the fast-growing IoT is also likely to see major growth in the enterprise sector next year. IT have already seen the true value that IoT can bring to the modern workplace. This can be in the form of intelligent lighting, location services in the workplace and more.

4. SDN Will Come In Full Force: Software-defined networking (SDN) are already making their way in the modern data center, replacing the old traditional networking things. It's the next big thing in the world of enterprise networking. Nicira's vision of end-to-end programmability and full automation across all network domains has finally come into a reality.

5. Location-based Services Get Much Bigger: Location-based services are also expected to increase in 2017, particularly in wireless environments, especially in industries like retail and healthcare. Improvements in Wi-Fi technology will give rise to whole new capabilities and new applications, according to NetworkComputing. By 2017 the world will start to change, location-based services are going from niche to mainstream.

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