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Teamwork makes the dream work, and according to Aviatrix, the era of virtualization is no different: the cloud needs community.
The company’s new online collaboration platform, The Cloud Network, aims to help enterprises migrate business-essential applications into a secure and resilient environment.
“Enterprises are moving more business-critical applications to the cloud every day and running up against challenges when it comes to network resiliency, security, agility, and cost,” according to Katie Holms, Senior Manager of Community Programs and the company’s multi-cloud network certification program, Aviatrix Certified Engineer (ACE). “Many have been relying on native constructs, but as they run into inherent limitations and complexity with multi-cloud deployments, they’re searching for resources to help them solve those challenges,” she explained to Silverlinings.
Indeed, businesses are continuing to increase dedicated spending on cloud infrastructure, and research from Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) found that 72% of enterprises are currently using multiple clouds — with more planning to by 2024 [88%].
While experts have turned towards forums like Reddit and Stack Overflow, Holms says the value of Aviatrix’s network comes from its dedicated focus. “There isn’t another community like it.”
Aviatrix aims to promote this network as a “home base” where industry-wide knowledge can synthesize into the planning and execution of securely designed multi-cloud networks. “We want to create a place where the networking community can turn for advice, conversation, news, guides, training, and anything else that will help them thrive in this time of transition,” Holms said.
The roadmap to a fully operational multi-cloud network
According to Aviatrix VP of Global Business Development Nauman Mustafa, cloud is still a forefront and fresh enough technology for professionals tasked with its deployment that it really needs a best-practices roadmap. “This community does exactly that, and [it’s] made up of the people at the forefront of the shift to cloud,” Mustafa told Silverlinings.
“The Cloud Network will be the place they gather to work through problems and share tips and tricks among peers. With the high demand for our ACE Program, we’ve seen how people are searching for resources about cloud and multi-cloud networking,” he said.
Now the company is looking to propagate the program’s knowledge to the larger cloud community. But while businesses are ready “to go full-throttle” on cloud-based initiatives, there are roadblocks. Technical limitations, skills gaps, and overall resources continue to be major barriers to overcome, and Mustafa expects those challenges to continue into The Cloud Network community as well.
“Additionally, many enterprises start their journey with one cloud provider,” said Mustafa. “They get recommendations from a [communications service provider] CSP that work mostly for that one cloud, and the functionalities are dependent on what is available with that CSP.”
Consequentially, businesses struggle to find a “holistic architecture” to build a strong and secure cloud deployment “regardless of the cloud providers and where operating models can extend to the on-prem world.
”For this reason, the network touts a long line of additional education-focused features such as technical and journalistic cloud and security resources; exclusive events, webinars, and classes; advocacy programs for interested leaders; and access to ACE. Mustafa says the approach will allow “enterprise architects to build the architecture correctly from the start.”
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