Branch locations are increasingly important to the success of modern organizations. Branches enable businesses to provide a local “touch point” for customers, business partners, and others—a connection that can be critical in an increasingly virtual and disconnected world.

However, to be successful, branch employees need access to resources that are often only available at the company’s headquarters. This might include valuable customer data, line-of-business applications or services, and more.

Your current branch infrastructure may be “distributed,” with local, physical servers providing most or all services for branch employees; “centralized,” where all services are provided from a centralized datacenter; or a “hybrid” infrastructure, where some services are provided by local branch servers and other services are provided from a central datacenter. However, regardless of your current infrastructure, you can reduce information technology (IT) costs, improve IT service levels, and enable new business scenarios by adopting best practices that will enable you to modernize your branch infrastructure. These best practices include virtualization, centralized management, and increased network efficiency.