CloudGenix Charging Ahead in SD-WAN

Networks of today are overwhelmingly complex, and aside from the complexity prove quite costly. A solution to much of the tribulation in Wide Area Networks is Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN), a way in which to automate network functions to adapt to traffic, bandwidth and a bevy of additional connectivity issues.

At the recent Editors Day Silicon Valley, CloudGenix CEO and Founder Kumar Ramachandran spent some time with TMC (News - Alert) to discuss not just how his firm is transforming the networking space but there are other driving forces in the market as well:

• Cloud technology has been experiencing explosive innovation and adoption this transition introduces the question of best practice for optimal connectivity. 
• Many companies are moving from or augmenting MPLS with IP-based communications, which can create bandwidth issues.
• And then couple this with the ubiquitous movement from hardware to software.

Basically everything on and around networks has had a facelift.  While the network teams have had to deal with hardware, routing protocols and fragmentation but those times are changing. Ramachandran noted that “There is a clear need and acknowledgement that it’s time for a transition away from legacy routing protocols to a new way of software and application-driven networking.  It’s an exciting time to be in networking.”

He illustrated the effectiveness of the CloudGenix SD-WAN model with a case study from a national retailer. For a retailer, credit card transactions and Omnichannel applications are a priority on the network. This means that as credit cards are swiped they want that traffic to be prioritized over all other network traffic and sent securely over what ever connection, MPLS, broadband, or LTE (News - Alert), that is performing best at that moment in time.

When a CloudGenix SD-WAN is deployed it builds a secure application-driven fabric for the customer.  Then, from the central controller, the company simply indicated the available transports for each application, the security and the priority.  Then CloudGenix SD-WAN continually monitors the real-time network and application performance on the network and then moves the traffic based on the business priorities that were set.  Companies that move toan SD-WAN commonly experience over 50 percent WAN cost savings. The simplicity in which it is deployed and implemented allows the firm to focus on and enable new business initiatives knowing it is also delivering an exceptional customer experience.

What is particularly unique to CloudGenix is that their SD-WAN is application-defined, meaning that they forward traffic based on app flows and app sessions. They monitor and measure the end user experience against the pre-defined SLA at the controllers. CloudGenix has additional application intelligence built in, so for example when a user is leveraging an application like Skype (News - Alert) the system understands that this data may be “bulkier” and will make the necessary adjustments. Ramachandran stated, “We are make traffic engineering decisions at the application level – nobody else is doing this.”

As networking transforms, CloudGenix is serving at the forefront of this innovation. Only time will tell what the future holds for this industry trailblazer, but it is most certainly bright.