International Data Corporation (IDC) Octber 1 published an IDC Innovators report profiling four companies that offer multicloud networking solutions for the enterprise. The four companies are: Alkira, Aviatrix, Nefeli Networks, and Volterra.

The adoption of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) has effectively redrawn the boundaries of the enterprise datacenter, with the datacenter and its network becoming distributed. Unfortunately, most enterprises aren’t prepared for the complexities associated with multicloud networking.

“The migration of workloads to clouds not only redefines the parameters of the datacenter network, but it also dramatically changes what’s required of the network architecturally and operationally,” said Brad Casemore, research vice president, Datacenter and Multicloud Networks. “The focus now is on abstracting and mitigating the complexity of networking optimally to disparate clouds, each with its cloud-specific APIs and networking constructs and services. “

Multicloud networking is designed to meet the need for a declaratively and simply managed, on-demand, elastically scalable, and highly available distributed network that spans hybrid and multicloud environments to support and deliver the applications and workloads that are the lifeblood of the digital enterprise. By addressing the complexities from different architectures, network APIs, and the growing array of network and security services offered, multicloud networking solutions attempt to bring agility and flexibility to the network and the operating models that govern it.

The report, IDC Innovators: Multicloud Networking, 2020 (IDC #US46864120), profiles four companies that are addressing the need for simple, consistent, flexible, reliable, and elastically scalable multicloud networking, helping enterprises and IT operators realize the full promise of cloud-enabled digital transformation.

Alkira offers a global, on-demand, unified multicloud network that forms an overlay of cloud exchange points, providing a single connection to multiple clouds.

Aviatrix addresses the complexity challenge by creating an abstraction layer that makes a multicloud network operate as a single network, with a consistent security and operational model across clouds.

Nefeli Networks provides highly automated network and security functions that can span multiple clouds with policy-based definitions, fast service creation, autoscaling, self-healing, and pervasive visibility.

Volterra uses a SaaS-based platform that consolidates networking, security, application delivery and multiple native cloud provider services to integrate policy and centralize observability.