Forward Enterprise Recognized with Award from Consecutive Mobile Breakthrough Program Wins

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Forward Networks, the only provider of network digital twin technology that delivers network agility, predictability, and security for on-premises and multi-cloud environments, today announced that its Forward Enterprise platform has been selected as the winner of the "Cloud Computing Innovation of the Year'' award in the sixth annual Mobile Breakthrough Awards program. The program is conducted by Mobile Breakthrough, a leading independent market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies, and products in the global wireless and mobile market today.

Forward Networks is the only company offering visibility and verification capabilities across the entire network estate, including on-premises, hybrid-cloud, private cloud, public cloud, and multi-cloud environments. The company's mathematical model creates a complete and always-current digital twin of an organization's physical, virtual, and multi-cloud network, including config and state information for all network elements. . The digital twin provides a comprehensive view of all network behavior, with visibility into every possible path a packet can take. With this view, the Forward Enterprise platform delivers unprecedented on-premise and multi-cloud visibility in an actionable, vendor-agnostic format, enabling all organizations to conduct business in the cloud with certainty.

Forward Enterprise enables teams to prove network innocence and diagnose issues in seconds, which means dramatically reduced business disruption. By making it easy to monitor, model and diagnose network behavior and configuration operations, Forward Enterprise helps speed cloud adoption and ensures that the entire compute estate behaves as intended.

"We're honored to win Mobile Breakthrough Awards for two consecutive years," said Chiara Regale, vice president of product and UX, Forward Networks. "Modern IT departments need visibility into their entire network, both on-prem and in the cloud. Forward's digital twin is delivering this, and these back-to-back award recognitions of our platform are a testament to that."

Organizations with hybrid, multi-cloud environments that require many operators across disciplines will reap the greatest rewards today from using a digital twin.

by Chiara Regale, Network Computing

The increasing complexity of networks today requires IT teams to oversee network connectivity, cloud migration, mobile integration, security, and more, despite the IT staff shortage crippling progress for many organizations. The sum becomes a herculean task as a typical enterprise network spans multiple locations and thousands of devices, each with its own proprietary operating system and configuration rules. IT teams need a solution that oversees these complexities in a way that doesn’t inhibit growth, increase risk, or rely on regressing back to on-premises, centralized systems. Some wonder if a digital twin is the answer.

A digital twin is an exact virtual reproduction of an organization’s entire network environment that can model network behavior. In its Emerging Technologies and Trends Impact Radar report, Gartner predicts digital twins will fundamentally change the way enterprise networks are managed due to the host of benefits they provide organizations...

[READ MORE ON NETWORK COMPUTING]

Forward Enterprise Recognized with 2022 Stratus Award for Software as a Service

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Business Intelligence Group today announced that it has awarded Forward Networks a 2022 Stratus Award for Cloud Computing in the Software-as-a-Service category. This is Forward Networks' second time winning a Stratus Cloud Computing award. Award winners represent the companies, products, and people offering unique solutions that take advantage of cloud technologies.

Cloud providers ignore the reality of multi-cloud environments by presenting siloed visibility into what's happening in each individual cloud. Forward Networks has delivered a Software-as-a-Service network digital twin that acts as a single pane of glass solution to visualize and verify hybrid multi-cloud networks. IT departments can now perform hop-by-hop analysis of traffic from the on-premises network and throughout the multi-cloud estate to make their networks more secure, reliable, and agile.

"IT departments need the same level of assurance in the cloud that we deliver for multi-vendor on-premises environments," said Chiara Regale, VP of product and UX, Forward Networks. "We've extended our digital twin capabilities to deliver a comprehensive view of all network behavior and hop-by-hop visibility for an organization's physical, virtual, and multi-cloud network estate. Winning the Stratus Cloud Computing Award again validates the importance and effectiveness of our efforts and we are honored to be recognized."

"Forward Networks is at the forefront of the cloud helping to drive practical innovations in the cloud," said Maria Jimenez, Chief Nominations Officer of Business Intelligence Group. "The cloud is now part of the fabric of society, and we are thrilled that our volunteer judges were able to help promote all of these innovative services, organizations, and executives."

About Forward Networks
Forward Networks is revolutionizing the way large networks are managed. Forward's advanced software delivers a "digital twin" of the network, enabling network operators to ensure that the network is agile, predictable, and secure. The platform supports devices from all major networking vendors and cloud operators, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

Forward Networks was founded in 2013 by four Stanford Ph.D. graduates and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Investors include Goldman Sachs, Andreessen Horowitz, Threshold Ventures, and A. Capital.

About Business Intelligence Group
The Business Intelligence Group was founded with the mission of recognizing true talent and superior performance in the business world. Unlike other industry and business award programs, business executives—those with experience and knowledge—judge the programs. The organization's proprietary and unique scoring system selectively measures performance across multiple business domains and then rewards those companies whose achievements stand above those of their peers.

By Nikhil Handigol, RTInsights

Most IT professionals lack visibility into their hybrid and multi-cloud environments. And they have problems identifying all the cloud services in use in their organizations.

The cloud promised three important things – simplicity, security, and flexibility. As the variety and the sheer number of cloud platforms increases with unprecedented velocity, the corresponding challenges of effectively managing, securing, and paying for these cloud services inevitably rise, too. An Omdia report suggested that by 2023 most companies will spend 40% of their IT budget managing their infrastructure across multiple cloud service providers.

[READ MORE ON RTINSIGHTS]

By George Lawton, VentureBeat

The network, once seen as little more than plumbing in the datacenter, is at the center of distributed IT operations. Ensuring network operations and protecting them from cyberattacks has become paramount to modern enterprises.

“You can almost imagine that networks would be on par with power and water and electricity and that kind of stuff,” Nikhil Handigol, co-founder of Forward Networks, tells The Next Platform. “You cannot imagine a modern business functioning without its network functioning. On one hand, networks were super critical for big businesses and are becoming increasingly critical. On the other hand, they’re becoming more and more complex and more and more fragile, both from a connectivity perspective and from a security perspective. From a connectivity perspective, they were so fragile that one misconfiguration could take the entire network down. It’s still the case.”... [READ MORE ON THE NEXT PLATFORM]

By George Lawton, VentureBeat

This is the second of a two-part series. Read part 1 about the current state of networking and how digital twins are being used to help automate the process, and the shortcomings involved.

As noted in part 1, digital twins are starting to play a crucial role in automating the process of bringing digital transformation to networking infrastructure. Today, we explore the future state of digital twins – comparing how they’re being used now with how they can be used once the technology matures.... [READ MORE on VentureBeat]

By George Lawton, VentureBeat

Designing, testing, and provisioning updates to data digital networks depends on numerous manual and error-prone processes. Digital twins are starting to play a crucial role in automating more of this process to help bring digital transformation to network infrastructure. These efforts are already driving automation for campus networks, wide area networks (WANs), and commercial wireless networks... [READ MORE on VentureBeat]

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Great Place to Work® and Fortune magazine have honored Forward Networks as one of the 2022 Best Small Workplaces. This is Forward Networks' first time being named to this prestigious list, this year coming in at 20th place nationally. Earning a spot means that Forward Networks is one of the best companies to work for in the country.

To determine the Best Small Workplaces list, Great Place to Work analyzed the survey responses of over 30,000 employees from Great Place to Work-Certified™ companies with 10 to 99 U.S. employees. In that survey, 100% of Forward Networks' employees said Forward Networks is a great place to work. This number is 43% higher than the average U.S. company.

"Everyone at Forward Networks is excited to creating a new software category that fundamentally changes how networks are managed," said David Erickson, Co-founder and CEO, Forward Networks. "Our shared passion is the foundation of the supportive and empowering work environment we strive to continuously improve. We're honored to be named to the National Best Places to Work list."

The Best Small Workplaces list is highly competitive. Great Place to Work is the only company culture award in America that selects winners based on how fairly employees are treated. Companies are assessed on how well they are creating a great employee experience that cuts across race, gender, age, disability status, or any aspect of who employees are or what their role is.

"It's not the size of an organization that makes it great, but how the organization treats its people," says Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work. "And these small workplaces have proven that the inspiring cultures they've created go head-to-head with those of any large corporation. Leaders at these companies put their people first, and in return, achieve stronger business results than the average workplace."

In June of this year, Forward Networks was also ranked as one of the Best Workplaces in the Bay Area.

About Forward Networks
Forward Networks is revolutionizing the way large networks are managed. Forward's advanced software delivers a "digital twin" of the network, enabling network operators to ensure that the network is agile, predictable, and secure. The platform supports devices from all major networking vendors and cloud operators, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

Forward Networks was founded in 2013 by four Stanford Ph.D. graduates and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Investors include Goldman Sachs, Andreessen Horowitz, Threshold Ventures, and A. Capital.

About the Best Small Workplaces™
Great Place to Work selected the Best Small Workplaces by analyzing the survey responses of over 30,000 employees from Great Place to Work-Certified™ companies with 10 to 99 U.S. employees. Company rankings are derived from 60 employee experience questions within the Great Place to Work Trust Index™ survey. Great Place to Work determines its lists using its proprietary For All methodology to evaluate and certify thousands of organizations in America's largest ongoing annual workforce study, based on over 1 million survey responses and data from companies representing more than 6.1 million employees this year alone. Read the full methodology.

To get on this list next year, start here.

About Great Place to Work®
Great Place to Work is the global authority on workplace culture. Since 1992, it has surveyed more than 100 million employees worldwide and used those deep insights to define what makes a great workplace: trust. Its employee survey platform empowers leaders with the feedback, real-time reporting and insights they need to make data-driven people decisions. Everything it does is driven by the mission to build a better world by helping every organization become a great place to work For All™.

By Craig Johnson, Senior Technical Solutions Architect, Forward Networks

Visibility and complexity, problems that have plagued cybersecurity and IT practitioners for decades, are still huge issues. A 2021 IDG survey found that 81% of practitioners struggle to identify the depth of a breach, and 68% find it challenging to identify what devices are in the network and its topology. This is not surprising. The network is now a piece of critical infrastructure that can't afford to go down, and its depth and breadth in the cloud and on premise is not something that many organizations could have imagined in the early ‘90s.

A Problem Already Too Big, and Growing

Security practitioners have always maintained that you cannot secure what you can't see, but what we can't see keeps growing. Take common vulnerabilities as an example. As of June 10, 2022, there were over 177,000 known CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) listed in the NIST Database. While security teams KNOW that remediating these vulnerabilities should be a priority, keeping up with numbers that high just isn't scalable for even the largest and most well-funded organizations.

While statistics may vary, security organizations are dealing with almost 55 critical vulnerabilities PER DAY  and some recent data shows that organizations are taking nearly two months to remediate critical risk vulnerabilities, with an average mean time to remediate (MTTR) of 60 days. This is due to sheer volume, as well as difficulty in sharing prioritized, actionable information in a manner that is easy for network engineers to understand and act on. For example, when the network team receives the information, it's a raw report lacking specificity (e.g. which alerts are new). Without this level of detail, the process is still time-consuming and prone to human error... [READ MORE on VMBLOG]

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Great Place to Work and Fortune magazine have honored Forward Networks as one of this year's Best Workplaces in the Bay Area. This is Forward Networks' first time applying for and being named to this prestigious list. Earning a spot means that Forward Networks is one of the best companies to work for headquartered in the highly competitive Bay Area.

This year's Best Workplaces in the Bay Area award is based on employee feedback collected through America's largest ongoing annual workforce study of over 1 million employee survey responses and data from companies representing more than 6.1 million U.S. employees. In that survey, 100% of Forward Networks' employees said Forward Networks is a great place to work. This number is 43% higher than the average U.S. company.

"We're thrilled and humbled that every one of our employees have said we're a great place to work," said David Erickson, Co-founder and CEO, Forward Networks. "Creating an outstanding company culture has always been a priority for the founders; being named to this prestigious list in a region known for taking care of employees the first time we've applied is a phenomenal recognition of our efforts."

The Best Workplaces in the Bay Area list is highly competitive. Great Place to Work, the global authority on workplace culture, selected the list using rigorous analytics and confidential employee feedback. Companies were only considered if they are a Great Place to Work-Certified™ organization and headquartered in the Bay Area. 

Great Place to Work is the only company culture award in America that selects winners based on how fairly employees are treated. Companies are assessed on how well they are creating a great employee experience that cuts across race, gender, age, disability status, or any aspect of who employees are or what their role is.

"As employee demands and expectations have dramatically changed over the past year, these companies have risen to the occasion—and it's not been easy," says Kim Peters, executive vice president of global recognition, research & strategic partnerships at Great Place to Work. "Their hard work and dedication to listen to and care for the well-being of every employee, and support them in a way that's meaningful to all, is the standard all organizations will be held to."

About Forward Networks

Forward Networks is revolutionizing the way large networks are managed. Forward's advanced software delivers a "digital twin" of the network, enabling network operators to verify intent, predict network behavior, and simplify network management. The platform supports devices from all major networking vendors and cloud operators, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

Forward Networks was founded in 2013 by four Stanford Ph.D. graduates and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Investors include Goldman Sachs, Andreessen Horowitz, Threshold Ventures, and A. Capital.

About the Best Workplaces in the Bay Area

Great Place to Work selected the Best Workplaces in the Bay Area by gathering and analyzing confidential survey responses from its study of thousands of companies representing more than 6.1 million U.S. employees at Great Place to Work-Certified™ organizations. Companies must be headquartered in the Bay Area to be eligible. Company rankings are derived from 60 employee experience questions within the Great Place to Work Trust Index™ surveyRead the full methodology.

To get on this list next year, start here

About Great Place to Work®

Great Place to Work is the global authority on workplace culture. Since 1992, it has surveyed more than 100 million employees worldwide and used those deep insights to define what makes a great workplace: trust. Its employee survey platform empowers leaders with the feedback, real-time reporting and insights they need to make data-driven people decisions. Everything it does is driven by the mission to build a better world by helping every organization become a great place to work For All™.  

Learn more at greatplacetowork.com and on LinkedInTwitterFacebook and Instagram.

SOURCE Forward Networks, Inc.

Top cross