CloudGenix

In the age of digital transformation, organizations across industries are racing toward a cloud-first environment in an effort to achieve business agility. Core to the success of these efforts is a dependable and efficient wide area network that ensures a secure and smooth digital experience. But legacy networking technologies are simply incapable of providing the visibility, speed, and flexibility that modern-day applications demand. Traditional WAN solutions rely on a low-level packet-centric approach which loses the race by miles in today’s world driven by applications and business intentions. Put simply, with packet routers, it’s a gargantuan task defining which application will use which links (like internet or MPLS) along with the required characteristics for performance, security, and compliance. In stark contrast to this bottom-up approach, CloudGenix provides a robust SD-WAN solution called AppFabric which is an evolution beyond and superset of packet-centric solutions. “Through AppFabric we provide top-down policy definition and enforcement that allows IT to define requirements for application performance, security, and compliance, while ensuring the best possible user experience,” says Joel Christner, Sr. Director of Marketing, CloudGenix.

The core technology within AppFabric is built on AI and machine learning constructs to understand application behavior, traffic patterns, and best predict how each application will perform over various WAN links given their current conditions. AppFabric can easily be deployed parallel to a client’s existing routing and in many cases reduces hardware footprint in the remote office. Being API controlled enables programmability to allow a DevOps model within IT for orchestration, configuration, management, and monitoring. The solution not only enables organizations to define policies in line with the business intent for applications and sites but also lets them choose the priority level and the paths allowed. Moreover, as soon as new applications are identified or new policies are created, they automatically propagate throughout the network.

AppFabric continuously monitors granular performance and health metrics for each application and WAN link, delivering unprecedented visibility and actionable insights. Usually, to achieve comprehensive reporting, an enterprise deploys different systems in various locations. AppFabric, on the other hand, is unique in the networking space as it performs policy enforcement, manages traffic, and offers end-to-end application and network monitoring all through a single platform delivered from the cloud.

In addition, AppFabric is Intel x86-based, with modern hardware and higher processing speeds. Typically when companies buy a router from other providers, they are buying a product that has undergone two- to three-year development cycle which started with a hardware platform that was already in the market at that time. With such routers, there are high chances of the underpinning technology being at least five-years-old. “Companies are paying a premium for legacy hardware when they buy such old-school routers.

AppFabric is a programmable WAN platform that fundamentally transforms the WAN into a performant, secure, resilient substrate, connecting users with applications in accordance with business policies for performance, security, and compliance

But with AppFabric, buyers get investment protection; it is available on a subscription model and modern Intel platform. AppFabric is built to scale and offers IT something radical - an advanced level of programmability and integration.” AppFabric features a software development kit (SDK) for most major languages, and organizations can manage their entire WAN and workflows across all their sites using either the CloudGenix portal or through their own applications and workflows using APIs. The CloudGenix portal is an entirely cloud-based platform with a simple point-and-click interface. The platform reduces the need for additional third-party systems for monitoring and visibility, and all statistics are delivered in the form of intuitive charts with actionable insights.

The company’s unparalleled expertise was brought to light when a large software engineering company famous for developing CAD/CAM applications deployed CloudGenix and became vocal in the power of the insights gleaned using the platform. With CloudGenix, the client was able to gain visibility into its network and application metrics which helped understand the state of connectivity and what was really happening on their WAN, thereby reducing time-to-innocence for the network and more quickly identify the root cause of issues.

In the days to come, the company is placing its bets on the power of AI and machine learning for ensuring state-of-the-art network performance. “IT as we know it is undergoing a radical transformation from managing low-level point products to holistically integrating an entire stack of connectivity and policy to enable the business. IT engineers of today that grow by adding DevOps and programming to their skill set are finding that, when using developer-friendly platforms like ours, they can enable use cases that were only a dream just five years ago. Our next-gen architecture, developer-centricity, and top-down approach is fundamental to that transformation,” ends Christner.