The Network Meets the Cloud

It was sixteen years back that I was staring at a Cisco router prompt and trying to grapple with the difference between a startup configuration and a running configuration. Things have come a long way and there have been tectonic shifts in the technology especially in its impact on everyday life and how we consume technology but little has changed when it comes to networking. This was the challenge in front of us as we started on this journey. Our marching orders were very straightforward; create a solution that does not need more that three clicks to set up, a solution that brings palpable value to our customers in less than 15 minutes, and a solution that operates without further customer involvement; well that was the norm in the Cloud when you wanted to use Google Mail or Box.net or set up a sandbox in Salesforce.com.

Eleven months later as we launch our service with many capabilities, the one constant is the need to keep it simple, easy to use, and easy to consume. You will notice this when you use our data feed management to set up log upload feeds across a diverse set of log formats or navigate through our dashboard to get a sense of your cloud security exposure and you will certainly experience it as you go through three clicks and introduce our network transparently between your end users and your cloud services. You will go through that process without thinking about VLANs or Access Control Lists; you will not need to configure routes or WCCP and you can create a trial without worrying about DNS or X.509 certificates.

Author :
Lauren Ellis is a research analyst covering the technology industry’s top trends & topics, focusing on cloud security, Cloud Computing, Data Loss Prevention etc.,