Cloudbrink releases tool to assess packet loss impact on hybrid workforce

Cloudbrink, a Hybrid-Access-as-a-Service (HAaaS) provider, has launched a ground-breaking tool designed to help organisations measure the impact of packet loss. The tool aims to shed light on a significant cause of network and application performance degradation, specifically for the hybrid workforce.

The revolutionary tool developed by Cloudbrink will empower IT departments to evaluate how packet loss, combined with their existing VPN/ZTNA solutions, is influencing the performance of their critical business applications and the end-user experience. Previous research has affirmed that even minute amounts of packet loss, as low as 0.0047% and latency as minimal as 30ms, can prompt a substantial drop in performance, decreasing effective throughput by up to 95%. An added latency from VPN or ZTNA services might cause a multiplier effect on performance degradation.

Users with office LANs and fast WAN connections are mostly protected from these flaws, but the issue predominantly affects remote or mobile users positioned at the edge of the network. In most instances, packet loss happens in the last mile, the distance from the user to the broadband network or the nearest cell tower, or the final access segment between the user's device and a Wi-Fi router.

Prakash Mana, CEO of Cloudbrink, explains, "The shift to hybrid work models brings new hurdles. Remote users often experience lag and connection inconsistencies (latency and jitter) that disrupt their workflow and create frustration with technology. This new tool empowers IT teams to identify these bottlenecks and implement solutions optimising application performance and end worker frustration."

Cloudbrink's tool imitates the network conditions that users are likely to experience while working from home on consumer-grade broadband or on the move using cellular networks and public Wi-Fi at hotels, airports, or coffee shops. Cloudbrink envisages that its tool will be employed by organisations when comparing two or more solutions during the evaluation phase of procurement and during the testing of the impact of variable network conditions on private and SaaS applications.

A study conducted early this year by the independent network test lab Broadband Testing revealed the aggravating effect of small amounts of packet loss under normal network conditions and how packet loss combined with modest increases in latency can severely impair performance. Steve Broadhead, Director of Broadband Testing, said, "Seeing is believing. This tool provides a great way of enabling the CTO to witness firsthand the effects of network degradation and how it can impact application performance."

Dwight Wilhelm, CEO of Graphene Networks, echoes the sentiment, "A critical component of helping our customers see the value of a solution is to show them how it will perform in their network and in real-world conditions. However, lab environments are rarely useful for evaluating how a solution performs against a myriad of potential real-world problems. The use of this tool provides a novel way to take real-world applications and simulate how network impediments impact application performance. This way, we can show the customer what to expect for their remote users, and it helps us mitigate issues faced by a work-from-anywhere staff."