In May 2021, Gartner released its first Market Guide for Cloud Networking Software, which encapsulates the core networking requirements for customers looking to interconnect their cloud and in our opinion, validates Prosimo’s approach of creating an integrated stack for cloud networking and other core services.
It’s no longer enough for organizations to interconnect applications and their users. To maintain a competitive advantage, enterprises must deliver fast, reliable application experiences to users at any location on the planet, while implementing Zero Trust frameworks for security. As a result, enterprise network architectures are changing. SD-WAN helped get customers to the cloud and was the first step (“to the cloud” motion) for cloud adoption. Now as customers move to the cloud aggressively, there’s a need to interconnect the clouds so users can connect to the cloud from anywhere.
“a market is emerging to address “inside the cloud” and multicloud networking challenges, as there are notable gaps from existing vendors. I&O leaders should look to cloud networking software products to address functionality gaps and improve operations within cloud and multicloud environments.”
Gartner Market Guide for Cloud Networking Software 2021
However, networking is not the only aspect that should be considered when looking to reap the benefits of multi-cloud. In this blog, we zoom out to show how cloud networking fits into the overall multi-cloud application infrastructure and how rethinking the stack can help simplify the core requirements of multi-cloud networking.
How does cloud networking fit into the multi-cloud application infrastructure?
Gartner describes the networking elements and requirements customers should look for when assessing the future of their infrastructure. Cloud networking is just one of the pieces that customers need. To take advantage of multi-cloud capabilities (such as features, transit and core networking, and so on) to deliver on user-to-app and app-to-app needs, customers should look at a wider stack that includes cloud networking as just one of the components.
How does Prosimo fit into Gartner recommendations?
We believe the Prosimo AXI integrated stack provides the simplicity customers need across four key areas, including cloud networking:
Cloud Networking Fundamentals
Many cloud networking capabilities are available natively from the cloud provider, with the desired elasticity, scale, and global reach. With Prosimo’s approach of looking at application endpoints and user identity, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel—especially around routing, segmentation, VPNs, and so on. Instead, Prosimo’s approach leverages a highly efficient and global cloud infrastructure that’s already available.
These core networking capabilities have been proven to work—Netflix, Uber, and Amazon, for example,[insert any successful IT company in the last 5 years here] have built applications that can scale and supersede the networking infrastructure that any enterprise has to support their applications
Application Performance
There’s growing evidence to suggest that optimally connecting to the cloud provides 25 percent better experience to applications. But with Prosimo’s full understanding of application types and, therefore, application optimizations, that number can get closer to 90 percent.
This part of the stack delivers capabilities that include private CDN, HTTP/s, global load balancing, and cloud edge networking, and provides controls that aren’t available through traditional networking in the cloud. Application performance needs higher layers of the stack than routing or layer-4.
Secure Access
In the cloud, you want to adopt a modern Zero Trust framework when it comes to application access. With the focus on user and application identities, you can eliminate the need for legacy VPNs, segmentation using VRFs, service insertion for network firewalling, and so on.
Capabilities provided by Prosimo AXI include Zero Trust access using an IAP and a modern approach to securely access applications globally, including the ability to limit attack surface, use behavioral analysis to detect malicious user activity, and granular policy controls for compliance.
Observability
The complexity of different networking, application, and security capabilities is challenging, and customers need an NPM, APM, and SIEM today that talk to various parts of the cloud infrastructure so IT teams have complete visibility to diagnose security or performance problems.
Customers need to elevate the approach of reacting to alerts or being aware of problems to a more AI Ops-driven model. In this way, they can proactively fix both security and infrastructure problems.
Prosimo’s AXI integrated stack of cloud networking, secure access, and application performance leads to a single, end-to-end view of the application. AXI provides data on application performance as well as infrastructure insights needed to make recommendations about dynamically expanding or shrinking cloud points of presence and applying security frameworks according to customers’ needs. In addition to enabling enterprises to take advantage of the rich insights that the collapsed stack provides, AXI’s deep infrastructure-focused monitoring ensures that the infrastructure being used to serve applications remains cost effective.
What’s different about the Prosimo AXI approach to cloud networking?
What can I do with Prosimo’s new approach?
Prosimo’s integrated stack supersedes the core elements stated in Gartner Market Guide for Cloud Networking Software, while bringing application performance, secure access, and observability from the same stack. Customers are already using Prosimo to take advantage of multi-cloud. This native cloud approach is helping customers across four Use Cases as defined in Gartner Market Guide:
- “Cloudify” the Private Data Center
- Public cloud enhancement
- Multicloud (i.e., Workloads in Multiple Public Cloud Providers)
- Edge networking
Prosimo is pleased to be recognized in the Gartner Market Guide for Cloud Networking Software as a Representative Vendor
Download 2021 Gartner Market Guide for Cloud Networking Software to learn more about this market.
Gartner, Market Guide for Cloud Networking Software, Andrew Lerner, Arun Chandrasekaran, Joe Skorupa, Jonathan Forest, 17 May 2021
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose
