RESEARCH PAPER: Nile — A New and Modern Approach to Enterprise Networks

By Will Townsend, Patrick Moorhead - August 21, 2024

Increasingly, enterprises of all sizes are embracing as-a-service consumption models for network infrastructure (IaaS) and software (SaaS) — and for good reason.

Campus and branch networks delivered as a service with cloud-native principles provide many advantages. Among them, low- to zero-touch configuration, provisioning, and deployment; continuous feature updates; and the ability to treat the underlying technology as an operational expense. However, the most compelling consideration is the ability for IaaS principles and SaaS models to be deployed at an organization’s network edge.

IT operators can take advantage of improved connectivity performance at the point of data creation, enhanced by service levels that mimic cloud infrastructure. Tedious network upkeep, software upgrades, and daily maintenance tasks can also be offloaded, freeing teams to provide more value-added, line-of-business support. At the same time, AI is poised to radically transform these operational models, enabling full automation of lifecycle management services and leading to optimized business outcomes. However, there are many solutions to choose from, and many are solely operational expense-oriented and aimed at offering procurement flexibility.

Because enterprise networks are not created equal, organizations seek guidance in determining which connectivity IaaS offerings deliver simplicity in operational workflows, agility in software innovation, resilience across different domain environments, service level guarantees, and the highest levels of security. IaaS is clearly a more flexible and cost-effective deployment consideration than managed service provider models, but many solutions are refactored legacy architectures. The latter is often a result of acquisitions made by larger networking providers aimed at shortening product development cycles and time to market. This manifestation presents challenges to integration, scalability, AI innovation, automation, and interoperability.

Conversely, Moor Insights & Strategy believes that Nile is well-positioned to deliver what enterprises require today from an AI-infused, modern IaaS connectivity offering. The company offers a ground-up, modern, highly containerized, and microservices software architecture that delivers a single networking and zero-trust security service backed by performance guarantees.

You can download the paper by clicking on the logo below:

Table of Contents

Executive Summary
A New Set of Requirements Necessitate a New Approach
Why Nile
Call to Action

Companies Cited:

Nile

Will Townsend

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Will Townsend manages the networking and security practices for Moor Insights & Strategy focused on carrier infrastructure providers, carrier services, enterprise networking and security. He brings over 30 years of technology industry experience in a variety of product, marketing, channel, business development and sales roles to his advisory position.

Patrick Moorhead

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Patrick founded the firm based on his real-world world technology experiences with the understanding of what he wasn’t getting from analysts and consultants. Ten years later, Patrick is ranked #1 among technology industry analysts in terms of “power” (ARInsights) in “press citations” (Apollo Research). Moorhead is a contributor at Forbes and frequently appears on CNBC. He is a broad-based analyst covering a wide variety of topics including the cloud, enterprise SaaS, collaboration, client computing, and semiconductors. He has 30 years of experience including 15 years of executive experience at high tech companies (NCR, AT&T, Compaq, now HP, and AMD) leading strategy, product management, product marketing, and corporate marketing, including three industry board appointments.