8 Internet startups that could change the industry

The current network industry seems to no longer focus on hardware products. The shift from hardware to software has cleared many of the obstacles that network startups have faced in the past, allowing even small technology startups to enter the enterprise network market and even change the entire industry. It must be said that some current trends are quite favorable for the development of network startups, allowing them to bring innovations to the market with agility, focus and speed, catching network giants off guard.

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8 Internet startups that could change the industry

One area that has received much attention is artificial intelligence (AI) and analysis. Now, through advanced analysis and prediction-based automation technology, the degree of network automation has been greatly improved, and enterprise networks can even make autonomous routing and switching choices based on various actual conditions. This network area includes network visibility of hybrid/multi-cloud platforms, intent-based networks, and remote user connections.

Another hot trend is the ability to achieve true interoperability between all network and infrastructure vendors. In the past, interoperability was considered a "nice to have." But now, it is considered a "must." Since network infrastructure is the foundation for building upper-layer physical and virtual component applications, all links must work together. While big brand vendors often insist on using their own proprietary equipment and API calls, most network startups use open source routing. This is obviously more innovative for enterprise customers in the network, and it is also easier to implement a better interoperability strategy.

The bottom line is that many startups are good at finding innovative ways to combine old technologies with brand new capabilities, whether it is standard routing/switching, domain name services (DNS), or wide area networks (WANs), completely changing the network by adding new capabilities to these traditional network technologies.

So let’s take a look at the eight Internet startups that have the potential to change the industry.

1. Ennetix

The hottest network trend in 2018 is the emergence of advanced monitoring and AI analysis platforms that help automatically identify potential service disruptions and adjust data flow routing around disruptions and bottlenecks. Ennetix is ​​a startup that has emerged in this new genre. Their xNET product was officially released in March and provides network visibility and advanced intelligence to discover network performance problems and fix them in real time. The xNET platform can run in hybrid cloud and multi-cloud environments.

2. Meta Networks

The concept of Network as a Service (NaaS) has been around for a while, but for most enterprises, it seems that it has not really enjoyed its value. This is because enterprise IT departments have been managing their own private data center networks internally, but as more and more applications, data and services move to the cloud, the local data center networks of many enterprises are rapidly becoming extinct.

To complicate matters further, employees no longer work in offices. Instead, they choose to work from home, remote offices, coffee shops, and anywhere else they can access the Internet. Meta Networks has seen the growing demand for NaaS in enterprises, providing global enterprises with another secure alternative to remotely connect to the company LAN.

3. Lumina Networks

Last year, Brocade was acquired and its assets were split, which made it unclear what the direction of its technology assets would be. In fact, Lumina Networks is one of the companies that acquired a small part of Brocade's SDN technology intellectual property. With Lumina's recent completion of a $10 million Series A financing round (led by Verizon and AT&T), Lumina's SDN products may be an important part of the network delivery of next-generation wireless services (including 5G).

4. Barefoot Networks

At Cisco Live 2018, Barefoot Networks announced and demonstrated an exclusive collaboration between Barefoot and Cisco on Cisco's new series of Nexus 3400 series data center switches, which impressed attendees. In the Nexus 3400, Barefoot demonstrated how their Smart Programmable Real-time In-band Network Telemetry (SPRINT) technology works and provides full visibility into every packet that passes through the switch. SPRINT technology can then be analyzed using Barefoot's recently launched Deep Insight network monitoring and analysis platform.

5. NS1

NS1's Pulsar RUM Steering product uses proven authoritative DNS to turn automated applications to intelligent choices to help improve network performance. It does this by intelligently determining which CDN the user will access to get the best network performance. When throughput, speed, and latency of cloud applications become the most concerning issues, Pulsar RUM Steering will be a good choice. In fact, Pulsar is so impressive that it won the Interop ITX Award earlier this year.

6. Arrcus

Last month, Arrcus demonstrated its ArcOS network switching and routing operating system. Like other startups on the list, ArcOS is also a vendor-neutral software-defined solution provider. Its purpose is to build large-scale and cost-effective networks in private and public clouds, which can greatly improve network performance and security. Obviously, based on solving many hybrid cloud and multi-cloud integration and growth challenges, Arrcus seems to provide solutions for many large-scale enterprise infrastructure innovations.

7. Apstra

While Cisco may have made the concept of intent-based networking a pervasive trend in IT organizations, companies like Apstra are helping to push the technology’s capabilities further. Their Apstra Operating System (AOS) is a multi-vendor platform that allows customers to choose the network hardware they want to deploy. AOS then simplifies deployment, management, and troubleshooting by leveraging analytics and telemetry, while masking the underlying complexity with advanced configuration controls and automation.

8. 128 Technology

While SD-WAN is not new to enterprise networking, 128 Technology is taking a different approach to WAN than traditional network vendors. The company's Session Smart Router is a virtual machine that can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud. With it, enterprise customers can build a non-overlay WAN to meet the needs of cross-applications and services. Its simple deployment and precise control make the platform unique.