Is your NaaS future-proof? Creating Infrastructure foundations for a scalable future

GenAI, automation and Machine Learning (ML) are driving generational change – reshaping the future of business and society as we know it. However, for these capabilities to accelerate innovation at an organisational level, Australian enterprises must overcome a critical hurdle first: getting their network fundamentals right to fully embrace the future. Truth is, businesses here in Australia can't make the most of the AI opportunity without a network that's scalable, secure, flexible and resilient.

Most businesses are invested in enterprise networks that were designed for a previous era and aren't fit-for-purpose anymore - a difficult pill to swallow for many but necessary to keep up with an accelerating rate of change.

Recent ISG data indicates that by 2028 digital revenue will represent 60 percent of an organisation's total revenues. This digital-first reality underscores the criticality for Australian businesses to get their NaaS fundamentals right. The trouble for enterprises is knowing where to start. 

The lack of a widely adopted industry definition for NaaS creates confusion. In many ways, it is customer-specific, and the NaaS your company requires is unique and evolving, just like your business. It's like having a virtual toolbox which allows you to adapt the network to suit your needs in real-time, whereas with previous technologies it could take weeks. This enables you as a business to modernise traditional networks into highly scalable cloud-centric solutions and flexible architectures that adapt quickly to different organisation needs.

A NaaS platform, rather than patching legacy networks together, makes it easier to securely and reliably interconnect employees, customers, suppliers and operational devices to apps and digital services — including AI — that are hosted across multiple clouds. Ultimately this gives you flexibility and scalability to meet the evolving needs of your business and the market.

Fundamentals that matter

To realise the full potential of digital revenue, companies must first solidify foundational elements like seamless third-party connectivity, automation, and scalable architecture. Without this, organisations face unpredictable costs, slow application performance (especially for AI and cloud services), and vendor lock-in. This not only drives up operating expenses but also undermines the agility needed to seize new market opportunities and remain competitive. 

Investing in a robust NaaS platform allows you to spin services up or down based on demand. This 'build once, scale many' approach ensures you meet today's GenAI workloads while remaining ready for tomorrow's innovations. Failing to get these basics right often means costly technology sprawl, fragmented visibility, and endless forklift upgrades - a future resource drain.

The insatiable demands of GenAI

GenAI's appetite for data is unrelenting. Large language models (LLMs) ingest vast volumes from edge sites, data centers, cloud, and third-party sources, all with optimal latency. This distribution necessitates a network that balances low latency (processing at the edge) with high-speed and secure transport to LLMs in the cloud. 

Industry uses of GenAI also rely heavily on large data lakes where the LLM acts as a reasoning layer. The outcome here is to enhance or personalise the information generated by the underlying LLM with more relevant and up-to-date information from the data lake.  

Traditional legacy infrastructure with long lead times and manual configurations simply can't keep up with these demands. This is hindering GenAI adoption and blocking enterprise transformation; as adoption rates of this technology accelerates, your network will become quickly incapable of meeting demands.

Embracing flexibility: pay-as-you-use 

Just as hyperscalers offer pay-as-you-go compute, modern networks must deliver commercial flexibility, too. Companies should review their fixed, multi-year contracts that force over-provisioning. With multi-cloud adoption, organisations also experience 'bill shock' from unexpected egress fees when moving data out of hyperscalers. NaaS platforms that simplify multi-cloud connectivity with usage-based autoscaling, is the way forward as you only pay for what you consume, while retaining enterprise-grade security and global reach.

Overcoming complexity with automation and API-first design

Masking the intricate orchestration of network components and presenting it as a simple 'click to deploy' solution is key to simplifying and speeding infrastructure outcomes. To be truly future-proof, a NaaS platform must offer 100 percent automated capabilities  – from bandwidth adjustments to dynamic network and service policies, driven by real-time telemetry – which eliminates manual intervention and delivers a rapid response from IT to changing business needs.

Similarly, an API-first architecture, instead of API as an add-on, ensures that network services integrate seamlessly into DevNetOps workflows. This gives organisations digital control over their connectivity fabric, and thus ability to leverage a NaaS platform to deliver a step change in their user experience

From foundations to frontier

Getting the fundamentals right, which means defining clear service objectives, investing in a flexible platform, and adopting pay-as-you-use models, sets the stage for NaaS to become a true enabler of digital and AI transformation in your business. 

As GenAI accelerates innovation across industries, networks that deliver low latency, automated scalability, and financial predictability will be the differentiators between those organisations that merely adapt and those that lead. By solidifying these building blocks today, businesses can confidently scale to meet the demands of tomorrow.