Remember when spinning up a new server took weeks of procurement, racking/stacking, configuration and deployment? Today’s cloud infrastructure transformed compute and storage into on-demand resources but networking seems to lag behind. As developers provisioned entire application stacks with automation and some API calls, network teams were still wrestling with carrier contracts, firewall appliances and the endless complexity of stitching together hybrid networked environments.
This disconnect has traditionally been a critical bottleneck for enterprise. As organizations accelerate cloud adoption, grapple with remote work and embrace zero trust architectures, traditional networking approaches simply can’t keep pace. That’s where Alkira’s vision comes in: what if networking could be as agile, scalable and consumable as orchestrated public and private compute infrastructure?
The Network Infrastructure Revolution
Alkira isn’t just another cloud networking platform. They’ve built something fundamentally different in the way of a global network delivered entirely as a service. Think of it as the networking equivalent of what AWS or Azure did for compute: abstracting away physical complexity while delivering powerful infrastructure capabilities as needed and on demand.
It all starts through Alkira’s Cloud Exchange Points (CXPs) which are virtual points of presence deployed across major cloud providers globally. These CXPs are full networking stacks with routing, security services, traffic management and observability built in. One can compose their network within minutes and have customizable connectivity spanning on-prem, multi-cloud and work-from-anywhere users.
Beyond Traditional Boundaries
What strikes me most about Alkira’s approach is how it transcends some of the boundaries we’ve encountered in networking. Take for example these common scenarios:
Multi-cloud connectivity traditionally requires deep expertise in each cloud service provider’s (CSP) networking constructs in the way of VPCs, VNETs, transit gateways and countless other proprietary concepts. Alkira abstracts all of this complexity away by providing consistent networking across AWS, Azure, GCP, not to mention on-premises environments without requiring expert level cloud networking skills.
Security services insertion becomes elegant and simple. Instead of deploying physical firewalls in every region required, one can insert virtual security services globally. Alkira handles the complex coordination of traffic steering, state management and visibility for all of it completely as a service. No boxes required.
Business partner connectivity traditionally involves months-long projects, new circuits and costly deployments but can now be provisioned instantly with granular routing policies, segmentation and full visibility.
The Economics of Agility
The shift from CAPEX to OPEX is obvious for many modern organizations but the real economic impact goes much deeper than that. When network changes take minutes instead of months, so many more capabilities emerge. M&A integration timelines compress from months to weeks and in some cases, even days. Geographic network expansion no longer requires significant upfront infrastructure investments and lead times. Security policies can quickly be deployed and uniformly enforced without hardware appliance or license sprawl.
Perhaps most importantly, Alkira enables network teams to operate at the speed of their cloud peers. No more being the bottleneck when developers need connectivity for deploying in a new region or when the business wants to onboard a new partner. The network becomes an asset versus a liability.
Looking Forward
As we enter an era where modern workloads demand unprecedented flexibility in connectivity, traditional networking approaches will only become more constraining. The enterprises that will thrive will be those that can adapt their infrastructure as quickly as their business requirements can evolve.
Alkira’s network infrastructure-as-a-service represents more than a shift in thinking when it comes to connectivity, it fundamentally changes how networks are consumed and operated. By bringing cloud principles to networking they are not just solving connectivity challenges of today, they’re leading the way in the connectivity frontier.
The future of networking isn’t about managing boxes or memorizing command line syntax. It’s about expressing outcomes and letting intelligent infrastructure handle the rest. In that future, Alkira is showing us what’s possible as we reimagine networking from first principles.
