Forward Networks’ flagship product, Forward Enterprise, delivers a vendor-agnostic “digital twin” of the network, designed for both cloud and on-prem networks
It seems as if there is a new networking technology announced every day. When faced with a deluge of information and vendors seeking your attention, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. We feel the Gartner Hype Cycle reports seek to tame the confusion by objectively reviewing new technologies and applications and offering IT leaders a view of how new additions to the market will evolve over time. Gartner Hype Cycles provide a graphic representation of the maturity and adoption of technologies and applications, and how they are potentially relevant to solving real business problems and exploiting new opportunities. I&O networking leaders can use this research to prioritize investment and optimize adoption of emerging network technologies.
The Gartner Hype Cycle for Enterprise Networking 2024 describes the 29 most hyped innovations in networking. Each hyped technology is defined, the report describes its value, and identifies adoption drivers and inhibitors of growth. More than one-third of the technologies profiled in this research have changed from last year. This year, Network Digital Twins are identified as a transformational technology.
Forward Enterprise is the most comprehensive and sophisticated network digital twin available. The platform empowers engineers to improve network security, query the network like a database, prove compliance, gain visibility across the global network, and drill down to a single device or instance.
The network is constantly changing to keep up with business demands. Organizations are pushing to make changes faster and with greater accuracy at a time when there’s a limited number of skilled technical resources. A network digital twin can mitigate these issues.
Gartner predicts that a network digital twin can improve delivery times for requests by 20% across the network.
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Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s Research & Advisory organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
As I write this, billions of users are looking at “the blue screen of death.” Flights are grounded around the world, 9-1-1 service is offline in the entire state of Alaska, hospitals can’t check in patients, retailers cannot make sales because their POS systems are down, Newark airport has reverted to paper tickets for check-in, and countless other organizations are at a standstill. This is the top story on every major news site I’ve checked.
What could cause this carnage? I thought this must be a nation state attack. Nope, it was a “flawed security update.”
What does a network outage cost?
The cost of this outage may never be fully calculated, but we know outages cost companies a staggering amount of money. While the magnitude of today’s “event” is spectacular, it’s far from being the only major outage caused by a simple mistake. 2024 has seen major disruptions at WhatsApp, McDonalds, major UK grocery retailers and Greggs bakeries, all caused by simple configuration errors, and each negatively impacting millions of people (billions in the case of WhatsApp). Even the major cloud providers and telecom providers are subject to outages.
Can outages be prevented?
Forward Enterprise is a mathematically accurate digital twin of the network capable of verifying compliance, preventing configuration drift, and verifying connectivity pre- and post-change. By collecting configuration and state data across the entire network the platform verifies that the network is behaving as expected, alerting engineers anytime a non-compliant configuration is detected. Put otherwise, it’s software support that prevents simple human errors from becoming multimillion dollar, headline gripping mistakes. Our customers frequently report discovering simple errors they can resolve before they experience an outage, things like missed redundancy on a critical network or simple config drift. Here are some additional examples of benefits our customers report:
A human resources management software and services reported that by using Forward Enterprise for pre- and post-change verification they eliminated human error related outages.
“The checkout procedures for our deployment and operational teams are now built out in their workspaces. Beforehand, what would have been up to the individuals’ pre-/post-checkout routines is now part of their procedure operationally. A normal pre-/post-check would take 30 minutes. Now, it takes 5 minutes. And it’s consistent and uniform among engineers.” (IDC Business Value Solutions Brief, the value of Forward Networks)
A global bank that works with Forward Networks discovered 6,000 ports with a misconfiguration that would have rendered their IP phones used by their trading staff inoperable. Not only did Forward Networks discover the problem before there was an issue, it did so in minutes. By the bank’s calculations it would have cost them $100,000 to manually check the ports, an outage could have cost millions.
How does Forward Enterprise prevent outages?
Forward Enterprise is a mathematically accurate digital twin of the network capable of verifying compliance, preventing configuration drift, and verifying connectivity pre- and post-change. By collecting configuration and state data across the entire network the platform verifies that the network is behaving as expected, alerting engineers anytime a non-compliant configuration is detected. Put otherwise, it’s software support that prevents simple human errors from becoming multimillion dollar, headline gripping mistakes. Our customers frequently report discovering simple errors they can resolve before they experience an outage, things like missed redundancy on a critical network or simple config drift. Here are some additional examples of benefits our customers report:
A human resources management software and services reported that by using Forward Enterprise for pre- and post-change verification they eliminated human error related outages.
“The checkout procedures for our deployment and operational teams are now built out in their workspaces. Beforehand, what would have been up to the individuals’ pre-/post-checkout routines is now part of their procedure operationally. A normal pre-/post-check would take 30 minutes. Now, it takes 5 minutes. And it’s consistent and uniform among engineers.” (IDC Business Value Solutions Brief, the value of Forward Networks)
A global bank that works with Forward Networks discovered 6,000 ports with a misconfiguration that would have rendered their IP phones used by their trading staff inoperable. Not only did Forward Networks discover the problem before there was an issue, it did so in minutes. By the bank’s calculations it would have cost them $100,000 to manually check the ports, an outage could have cost millions.
Start Preventing Outages Today
Because this particular problem wasn’t due to a network configuration error, we may not have been able to prevent it, however we’ve proven that our platform prevents outages and reduces MTTR (Mean Time to Resolution). No network is too complex for our platform, we support customers around the world and scale to support tens of thousands of devices in a single instance. We offer the option of on-prem or SaaS implementation. Because we don’t require write credentials, make changes, or firmware updates there’s no risk to your network. We also like to say Forward Enterprise is painless, we don’t require agents, additional hardware appliances, software maintenance, or racks of servers. We also integrate with applications you trust for added value (Itential, ServiceNow, Slack, Tenable, Rapid7, and more). Give us 30-minutes and we’ll show you how we can start saving your organization money and time)
In today’s complex IT environments, maintaining full network visibility is a daunting task. Network segmentation, while essential for security, often complicates the process of obtaining a comprehensive view of the entire network infrastructure. Federal IT departments charged with the responsibility of keeping networks mission-ready, face significant hurdles in visualizing connectivity, ensuring security zone segmentation, and performing complete path searches across segmented domains.
Network Segmentation - Beneficial and Complex
Network segmentation involves dividing a network into multiple segments or domains, each with its own administrative control. This segmentation is crucial for minimizing risk in the event of a security incident by containing potential threats within isolated sections. However, this also results in several challenges:
Limited Visibility: Segmentation can obscure the overall connectivity map, making it difficult to visualize how different parts of the network interact.
Complex Troubleshooting: Diagnosing issues that span multiple segments is challenging without a unified view of the network. Connectivity problems in one segment may have root causes in another, but traditional tools often fail to provide this cross-domain insight.
Operational Inefficiencies: The lack of a holistic view can lead to inefficiencies in network management, as operators must switch between different administrative interfaces and manually piece together information.
Network Digital Twins Provide Integrated Visibility
In the same way Google Maps is a context-rich digital twin of transportation systems and roads, a network digital twin is a searchable digital replica of a network’s physical and logical components that enables engineers to ensure the network behaves as expected and that security policies are enforced. Forward Networks’ merged snapshots feature addresses the visibility and troubleshooting challenges posed by network segmentation.
How Merged Snapshots Work
The merged snapshots feature integrates snapshots from different administrative domains to create a unified view. Here’s how it works:
Collect Individual Snapshots: Gather network snapshots from each segment, capturing the state and configuration of each domain.
Merge Snapshots: Import these snapshots into Forward Enterprise and use the merge function to combine them, creating a comprehensive view that spans all domains.
Perform Connectivity Testing: Conduct connectivity tests within this merged snapshot environment. Operators can initiate tests from one site to another and visualize the entire path, including the underlay, across different segments.
Benefits of Merged Snapshots
Unprecedented Visibility: By combining snapshots from various administrative domains, operators gain full visibility across the entire network, transcending traditional segmentation boundaries.
Improved Troubleshooting: With a unified view, operators can quickly identify and resolve connectivity issues that span multiple domains. The ability to see the entire path that traffic takes facilitates accurate diagnostics and efficient problem-solving.
Enhanced Efficiency: A comprehensive network view streamlines operations, reducing downtime, and improving the overall efficiency of network management.
IDC’s Business Value Solution Brief validates the impressive value delivered by the Forward Networks platform. According to the paper, the average user reaps $14.2M in value annually. This is achieved through improved efficiency, improved productivity, reduced downtime, and additional operational benefits (automated compliance validation, ability to achieve more without hiring, overall improvement to business operations, and additional revenue).
In addition to the platform, the Forward Networks user community delivers ongoing value by helping users get the most benefit from their investment. In my experience, engineers don't simply read about how a platform can improve their operations; they expert vendors to, “show me”. They want firsthand visibility into how their peers are using Forward Networks' digital twin technology to uncover insights that help them make the network more secure and reliable.
In the spirit of “show me”, I’d like to share some examples of how the Community is helping users get the data they need from the network.
Compliance
A standout Forward Networks feature is the ability to automate compliance verification. Forward allows you to proactively verify network configurations against compliance standards including PCI-DSS, HIPAA, STIG, and many others.
One user shared a query he developed to locate recursive patterns as part of his team's compliance efforts. Using NQE helped locate nested patterns. This saved his company time, and by sharing it, he saved even more time for Community members who needed to solve the same problem.
Performing configuration compliance checks requires completing sophisticated searches of device configurations, often looking for data within data. NQE parses configuration data and identifies patterns important to determining device configuration compliance.
The Security Technical Implementation Guidelines (STIGs) are device security guidelines set by the United States government's Defense Information Security Agency (DISA). DISA is responsible for maintaining the security requirements necessary to access the Department of Defense Information Systems Information Networks (DODIN). Adhering to these guidelines and passing audits is an extremely stressful undertaking for federal network engineers. Our Customer Success Engineer, Arica Beckstead, developed a series of NQE checks designed to “pre-check” the network for STIG compliance ahead of an audit. These checks identify any compliance issues and provide detailed information on how to solve them. Watch this demo on demand to see it in action.
As part of doing configuration audits for his NX-OS devices, Community member “Cariddir” needed a check to see if two conditions were met in a configuration to verify compliance. He turned to the Community for help in crafting the query and was immediately helped by Forward Networks' Technical Solutions Architect, Glen Turner.
Network security
Security is a paramount concern for any network. The Forward Community offers several discussions and articles to enhance your network's security posture. Security policy verification within the Forward platform ensures security policies are correctly applied across your network.
Community member “Brinkard'' and Forward Networks' Technical Solutions Architect “Captainpacket” created this NQE script to analyze all of the AWS security groups and show which ones are associated with a particular EC2 instance. Any groups that are tagged as a default security group are tagged as being in violation. The script allows platform users to restrict the query to specific cloud accounts as needed or add additional information (instance tags, image type, etc.) from the data model.
Network provisioning and scaling
Forward Networks provides important insights for network provisioning and scaling by providing detailed network visibility and automated verification of network configurations, ensuring that new resources are deployed accurately and efficiently.
Community user “Nand” and Forward Networks' Technical Solutions Architect “GaryB” created an NQE query in Forward Networks to get WAN, INT information. This is a great example of using the built-in "matches" function to save hours of work. By collaborating within the Community, “Nand '' was able to solve his issue quickly and accurately.
Community members “Cariddir”, ”AndyL”, Forward Networks' Customer Success Engineer "Tyson Henrie", and Forward Networks' Technical Solutions Architect “Gary B” teamed up to create this script with the goal of determining how ‘over provisioned’ "Cariddir" is on his switches (i.e. how many ports have never passed a packet). Having accurate data allowed “Cariddir” to scale back his spend on new equipment because he discovered many of his switches were over provisioned.
The Forward Community is helping users access accurate network data quickly to make their network more reliable and secure. By collaborating with each other and Forward Networks' engineers, users are expanding the ways Forward Networks can support their company and make their team more efficient.
As Helen Keller famously said, “Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” Our Community is creating new ways to extract value from the platform and helping one another tackle complex issues.
The Community is open to everyone interested in exploring the use cases for a network digital twin. Join us today to start benefiting from shared knowledge and collaboration.
As cyberattacks have intensified in volume and sophistication, the need for more prescriptive guidance is clear.
Initiatives like Executive Order 14028 and CISA’s Binding Operational Directive 23-1 have heightened scrutiny and accountability for security leaders tasked with ensuring network security and compliance. This guidance helps government entities and private sector organizations navigate the threat landscape and improve their security posture. However, diverse directives from the White House, the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and other government entities create confusion over which guidance to follow.
Please join us, along with IDC Research Director, Mark Leary, for an exclusive webinar, "The Business Value of Forward Networks," where we will detail the remarkable findings from IDC’s latest Business Value Solution Brief, sponsored by Forward Networks (US52128624, June 2024).
July 11, 2024 11:00 a.m. Pacific/2:00 p.m. Eastern Register here.
Mark Leary will present the compelling results from his recent interviews with active clients and how they are realizing millions in benefits from:
Reduced Downtime: Ensuring your operations run smoothly.
Heightened Productivity: Maximizing your team’s efficiency.
Operational Efficiencies: Streamlining processes for better outcomes.
Our Senior Vice President of Product and User Experience, Chiara Regale will host the event. Chiara and Mark will delve into the intricacies of these findings and demonstrate how Forward Networks can enable you to achieve substantial financial advantages.
This webinar is designed to be interactive and valuable for you. Please come prepared with your questions; we want to focus on what's important to you.
Working in this industry means long hours and high expectations. At the same time, tech companies large and small in Silicon Valley are known for lavishing perks on employees; the bar for treating employees well is set high in the Bay Area.
An Overwhelmingly Positive Outlook
This year, Forward Networks is #16 on the Fortune Best Workplaces in the Bay Area. To say that we’re excited about this is an epic understatement. We already knew this in our hearts, the Trust IndexTM Survey just validated what we already knew.
As part of the survey, employees anonymously respond to 60 statements about the company and answer two open-ended questions to determine whether their workplace values diversity, if leaders are competent, transparent, and trusted, if people feel valued, and if they feel like they have a future with the company. The results show that the Forward Networks team has an overwhelmingly positive outlook.
Shared Commitment, Teamwork, and Empowerment
This place isn’t special because of lavish perks; Forward Networks is special because of our people and our shared commitment for making the hard things in networking easy. That shared commitment is reflected in an environment of teamwork and empowerment that’s rare in any company, large or small.
Working here continues to be a magical era in my career where everyone I work with is excited to be here and we all know what we contribute to the company, our customers, and each other. Better yet, we know that no matter what we look like, where we were born, when we were born, or any of a million other factors that make people unique, we’re united and valued. If this sounds like a place you’d like to work, check out our careers page.
To objectively understand how increased efficiency translates to measurable ROI for enterprises, Forward Networks engaged IDC Research to determine the business value of the platform. After interviewing existing customers, they produced the IDC Solution Brief, The Business Value of Forward Networks, (US52128624, June 2024).
The paper delved deep into the experiences of Forward Networks’ customers who leverage the digital twin technology. The findings revealed indisputable improvements in network stability, reliability, team productivity, and operational efficiencies. These game-changing benefits, amounting to $14.2 million averaged annually, are derived from measurable enhancements in network performance and productivity.
Here are some key takeaways from the study:
Forward customers gain the equivalent productivity of 95.8 full-time employees, translating to a substantial $6.7 million in increased productivity.
Incident Response and Troubleshooting teams increased their efficiency by a staggering 34.2%, saving 35.8 FTE valued at $2.5 million.
IT team members experienced massive time savings, with network deployments completed 71% faster, and network-related problems resolved 44% faster.
Compliance teams equipped with Forward Networks' technology became 10.4% more efficient, leading to a significant benefit of 4 FTEs.
The impact doesn't stop there! With a better understanding of their network environment, customers saw a 33% reduction in downtime incidents, and if an incident occurred, it was resolved a whopping 55% faster. Plus, organizations slashed productivity loss caused by unplanned downtime, saving a considerable 180,195 hours annually.
Real Voices, Real Impact: Customer Testimonials
Forward Networks' impact goes beyond numbers. Here's what some of the customers had to say about their experience:
"Our organization fully embedded Forward Networks into its comprehensive software updating strategy. This is all done automatically and saves our organization weeks of planning each year."
“This revolutionary platform does much more than reduce downtime and boost productivity. It's about empowering organizations, revolutionizing the way large networks are managed and secured, and putting the control back in the hands of the people.”
“Forward Enterprise is not just another tool; it's a game-changer that identifies vulnerabilities in the network, delivers a prioritized remediation plan, and creates a digital twin of the network.”
In the dynamic and ever-evolving fields of networking, cloud, and security, staying informed and connected is crucial for professional growth and success. At Forward Networks, we believe in the power of community and collaboration to drive innovation and excellence. Here are four compelling reasons to join Forward Networks' online community and elevate your expertise:
Get answers to your networking, cloud, and security questions
Whether you are troubleshooting a complex network issue, exploring new cloud solutions, or enhancing your organization's security posture, having access to a knowledgeable community is essential. Forward Networks' online community is a reliable resource where you can post your questions and receive answers from experienced professionals who have faced similar challenges. Our community and knowledge base provide extensive documentation, how-tos, and community-driven solutions to help you find answers.
Gain deeper insights with NQE
Our Network Query Engine (NQE) allows users to perform queries to understand network behavior. By learning about and leveraging the Forward Networks platform and NQE, you can enhance your ability to manage large and complex networks with greater precision and confidence. Whether you are new to Forward and NQE or have years of experience, the Community offers resources to help you expand your capabilities. You can ask the experts questions to address your unique situation. They are there to help you find answers and define solutions to improve your network’s performance and security.
By actively participating in these discussions, you can share your experience, seek advice, and debate different approaches with fellow professionals. The Forward Community connects you with a diverse group of professionals who bring unique experiences and perspectives to the table. Engaging with these experts allows you to gain valuable insights and spark innovative ideas. Not sure how to tackle a problem or running into roadblocks? Ask the Community!
Unify your network ecosystem
The modern network relies on automation, APIs, and scripting to keep up with the rapid rate of change. The Forward Community is an excellent source for discovering and sharing innovative scripts, techniques, and queries that can improve efficiency and reduce manual errors. Explore scripts for automating routine tasks, monitoring network performance, and managing configurations. Many Community members share their custom scripts and the logic behind them, providing valuable learning opportunities for those looking to enhance their scripting skills. By leveraging these resources, you can adopt new techniques that streamline your workflow and improve your network's reliability and performance through workflow automation and integration.
The evolution of networking and security is a collaborative one. Joining the Forward Networks Community is a step towards continuous learning and professional growth as an expert and leader in enterprise network infrastructure. By collaborating with other professionals, engaging in dialogues, and drawing inspiration from the innovations of others, you can enhance your skills and knowledge and take your network to the next level. We look forward to you joining: http://community.forwardnetworks.com
Platform honored for simplifying vulnerability management in network devices and end-points
During a very busy RSA Conference, Forward Networks was named a market leader in vulnerability assessment, remediation, and management at the 12th annual Global Infosec Awards hosted by Cyber Defense Magazine. This is the second consecutive year that Forward Networks has taken top honors in security.
Last year, NIST published 28,902 critical vulnerabilities. The volume and complexity of vulnerabilities make it virtually impossible for IT teams to ensure they are not vulnerable to cyberattacks. Forward Networks helps organizations ensure they are not exposed by creating a network digital twin that identifies exactly which vulnerabilities are present in the network and their severity and then delivers a prioritized remediation plan. Forward’s secure, agentless collection method gathers current device and state information and combines it with Forward’s proprietary mathematical model to create a digital twin of the network.
It can be difficult to prioritize which vulnerabilities and devices should be updated first. Monitoring the latest descriptions and automatically checking them against the device configurations in the network is best performed by software. Forward Networks eliminates manual, error-prone hunting for those configurations on every single “possibly affected” device. The platform delivers an always accurate list of devices that are actually vulnerable. Remediation efforts can then be prioritized based on risk severity.
Forward Exposure Analysis combines the host vulnerability data provided by vulnerability scanners like Rapid7 or Tenable with Forward Networks' modeling capabilities to help security teams prioritize vulnerability remediation. By integrating with these tools, Forward Networks empowers security teams to identify in seconds any impacted hosts with critical vulnerabilities that can be accessed from the Internet or any other critical exposure point. This provides SecOps teams with unprecedented visibility into their security posture and helps them prioritize vulnerability remediation with mathematical certainty.
Many tools evaluate device vulnerabilities, but without the knowledge of how that device is connected to the network, SecOps teams only have a limited view of potential exposure. With established Rapid7 and Tenable integrations, Forward Networks is the only company that can show an organization’s actual risk, including on-premises, multi-cloud, and SD-WAN in an actionable, single screen.
One of Forward’s customers confided, “Prior to adopting Forward Enterprise, the number of CVEs overwhelmed staff, and we were unable to respond to them all. We claimed the network was in compliance, even though we could not prove it. With Forward Enterprise, we immediately know if a CVE impacts our network, its severity, and have a remediation plan.”
