If you are reading this, you most likely know that I have recently joined Forward Networks to run Global Sales. My first two weeks have been focused on reconnecting with many senior technology executives who are responsible for managing some of the world’s largest and most complex global networks.
Sharp network admins already verify the network in a variety of ways, right? Pings, traceroutes, and custom scripts verify expected connectivity. Link and CPU utilization monitoring programs verify normal operation. Maybe pushed configs are read back in to verify that the device accepted them.
You’ve probably heard about how hard it is to operate networks. The complexity of the devices, the diversity of protocols operating simultaneously, and the sheer size of the network are all well-known reasons for getting something wrong. As a result, network changes require stressful, carefully planned change windows to ensure the desired outcome, with no […]
You’ve probably heard about how hard it is to operate networks. The complexity of the devices, the diversity of protocols operating simultaneously, and the sheer size of the network are all well-known reasons for getting something wrong. As a result, network changes require stressful, carefully planned change windows to ensure the desired outcome, with no unintended consequences.
Since making our platform available, many of the world’s largest banks, telcos, and IT companies have come to rely on Forward Networks to keep their networks healthy and operated efficiently. From the CTO to a junior engineer, people quickly grasp the value of what the Forward Platform can deliver, like turning a common 4-hour task into a 4-second query, or discovering a hidden device misconfiguration before it turns into a costly outage.
The network lies at the heart of a modern enterprise’s ability to perform its daily business and operations. When a network outage occurs, due to a policy misconfiguration or a device failure, business grinds to a halt. Almost every week, it seems, we read a new headline where a Fortune 500 company suffered the catastrophic consequences of a network outage.
As part of Forward Networks’ public launch, we had the privilege of presenting to a lively delegation at Networking Field Day 13 on November 17th, 2016. The event took place at Andreessen Horowitz’ campus in Menlo Park, CA and constituted our first public unveiling of the Forward Platform.
Networks today are integral to many if not all aspects of our lives. A multitude of data packets whizz by on wired or wireless networks enabling us to carry out both our personal and business lives in the digital world. It is therefore easy to understand the chaos that is caused when these networks become disrupted in any way.
My three co-founders: Brandon Heller, Nikhil Handigol, Peyman Kazemian and I were fortunate to be members of the team that created Software Defined Networking while working on our PhDs at Stanford University. During our research, we built and operated OpenFlow-based networks from scratch.
