We are in the business of helping software providers with tools that make them more secure and efficient. In those conversations, we get exposed to the infinite number of ways that companies architect, develop, and support their application’s infrastructure. While the architecture and delivery of applications has never been trivial work, there has been an
The VPN Security Gap
Another day another VPN vendor is compromised. This time from our friends at Fortinet. This time half a million credentials were swiped from VPN routers. Once again, the vendor had issued a patch and once again many customers had not updated their systems. By now we all understand that there are no certainties in life.
SD-WAN Doesn’t Work for SaaS Providers
For SaaS applications that must connect to customer or partner data, SD-WAN doesn’t work. SD-WAN adoption is expected to grow rapidly over the next few years, with most companies implementing some form of SD-WAN within the next 5 years. For enterprises, SD-WAN is commonly seen as the modern way to build WAN connectivity to clouds,
Application Providers Need to Re-Examine to use of MPLS
Every day we speak with IT and product leaders looking for ways to improve the networking component of their application delivery. When the topic of MPLS comes up, there is a predictable groan of resigned disappointment. No one is coming to its defense. How can a technology that is so widely used, be so uniformly
Cloud Networking and SD-WAN
For cloud-delivered SaaS application providers, SD-WAN adoption has been a bit slower as their cloud challenges require different networking approaches. With the rise of hybrid cloud environments (mixing cloud and on-prem resources), networking has replaced the data center as the central component of enterprise infrastructure. As hybrid cloud has become more common, so too has
Cloud Fintech Needs a Better Network
After years of taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, fintech applications are moving to the public cloud. As a vendor with the privilege of talking to both application providers and financial institutions (FIs) daily, we find very few who are happy with the WAN solutions available to them as they move to the cloud. Initially,
Removing Cloud Limitations
Let’s start with a paradox – The potential of the cloud is limitless BUT the cloud is currently being limited. What the public cloud providers have built is a marvel of modern technology. Millions of coordinated systems running across dozens of regions not only provides the massive amounts of computing and storage needed to power
A Networking or Application Platform?
A service mesh is a software infrastructure that facilitates communications between microservices. It is used to control how different parts of a distributed application integrate with each other. This disassembles monolithic application architectures by allowing applications to be broken down into a collection of services that can be built, maintained, and improved independently of the
What is WAN Edge Infrastructure?
As Gartner defines it, WAN Edge Infrastructure is a class of networking technology that provides connectivity to distributed IT resources. Whether those resources are in data centers, public clouds or delivered as SaaS applications, connectivity is delivered through a combination of hardware and software that works to provide reliability and security to the network. What
What deploying to 20% of banks and credit unions means to us
Anyone who has worked in a bank or credit union IT department knows a couple of truths are threaded through every technology adoption decision. Any new solution should be more secure than the last. Every solution needs to do more with less $ (or at least the same). As an industry, financial services organizations are
Webinar: Next Generation Networking for Banks and Credit Unions
As security threats increase and regulations continue to change, the IT departments of banks and credit unions find themselves constantly playing catch up. And while these are very real threats to the business, IT professionals in a typical bank or CU will tell you that budgets aren’t exactly increasing year to year. Tech updates are
Webinar: Securing a Remote Workforce
For financial institutions, the shift to remote work has put strain on both staff and technology. Historically, offices have been the only place where banking was done. It was the place where the vault was located, where customers came to sign documents and where their work applications resided. Now, tools like Slack, Zoom and even