Alkira: Welcome to the Future of Networking

"Alkira is a network that can take you to and across clouds in minutes instead of months."

Alkira was founded in 2018 by Amir and Atif Khan, the visionary computer networking team that created the multi-billion dollar SD-WAN market that founded Viptela. After Viptela was acquired by Cisco in 2017, it was time to look for another significant customer problem to solve. Hence, the duo brought their innovation through Alkira.

Storage and compute had evolved to be cloud-friendly and cloud-like, but the network had not, and so the idea of the network cloud was born. Alkira has reinvented networking for the cloud era by delivering the network cloud, the first global unified network infrastructure with on-demand hybrid and multi-cloud connectivity, integrated network and security services, end-to-end visibility, controls and governance, all delivered as-a-service.

"Alkira" is from the Australian Aboriginal for "blue sky," and according to some sources, "a happy place in the sun." The co-founding duo of Amir and Altaf named the company with an awareness of a fresh start, coupled with real "blue sky" levels of innovation and vision. Their vision is nothing short of the complete reinvention of networking. A vision of a multi-cloud capable network that behaves like the cloud and is consumed as-a-service like the cloud.

Alkira is a network that can take you to and across clouds in minutes instead of months. A network where services, like firewalls, live and scale in the cloud. A network you draw instead of build. A network with end-to-end visibility and governance. A network delivered as a service.

"Alkira provides the first multi-region, unified global Multi-Cloud Networking as-a-Service and a full market place of services. They simplify an enterprise company’s journey to the cloud and offer service providers a compelling business proposition to tap into the cloud," said Ray Mota, CEO and Principal Analyst of ACG Research.

The company has delivered the industry’s first Network Cloud, a global unified cloud network infrastructure delivered as-a-service with

1) connectivity for hybrid and multi-cloud networks

2) integrated network and security services

3) end-to-end operational visibility and governance.

Alkira CSX is an on-demand, as-a-service, point and click, unified CNaaS that enables cloud architects to design, build, and deploy a global multi-cloud network in minutes. Alkira enables enterprises to implement 50% less firewall capacity, and reduce TCO by up to 40%.

Alkira Teams Up With Microsoft

"Alkira has created on demand multi-cloud network as-as-service enabling customers to easily self-provision a network and security edge directly adjacent to Cloud and SaaS resources within minutes. This can be done for the first time by someone with little to no cloud expertise, and can be consumed in a pay-as-you-go model which customers are demanding today. There are so many customer use cases and the timing couldn't be better," said Michael Periera, VP of Technology, Bridgepointe.

Alkira Network Cloud delivers a high-speed, low-latency cloud backbone connecting all public cloud instances. Public cloud instances can be a mix of AWS VPCs, Microsoft Azure VNets and GCP VPCs. Public cloud instances can also reside in a single public cloud across one or multiple geographic regions. "Our program gives new businesses access to the incredible resources of Microsoft and helps to bring the benefits of exciting new technologies like Alkira's Network Cloud platform to Microsoft's Azure customers. Alkira's platform provides a powerful and flexible set of capabilities to leverage the power of Azure to deploy fully featured cloud networks," said Jeff Ma, General Manager of Microsoft for Startups, Microsoft.

The Alkira Network Cloud platform which reduces the time, cost and complexity of connectivity cloud environments, provides Azure customers with increased performance, manageability and security when deploying Windows workloads in the Azure cloud. Microsoft Azure customers can access Alkira's solution in Azure, or in a multi-cloud network alongside other best-of-breed products in the Azure Marketplace. Microsoft customers who access Alkira's Network Cloud through Azure Marketplace benefit from reduced procurement overheads, simplified billing and quicker deployment, as well as the assurance of Microsoft certification.

Brad Casemore, Research Vice President, Datacenter Networks at IDC said: "IDC finds that enterprises are gaining greater appreciation of how modern infrastructure can support strategic cloud objectives such as business agility, application experience, robust security. That said, while enterprise architects want to help their organizations achieve greater business agility through the migration of workloads to cloud, they also want to ensure that the transition doesn’t entail compromises to operational control and management. Alkira's Network Cloud platform addresses these requirements by helping organizations and their architects reconcile the business benefits of cloud with the need for effective control."

The Leader

Amir Khan, President, Founder & CEO

Amir Khan is a computer networking visionary who founded and led Viptela’s market-leading, cloud-first, Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) business before its acquisition by Cisco. As prescient as he was in identifying the $8B opportunity for SD-WAN, Amir recognized that the network hampered the cloud journey and founded Alkira in 2018 with CTO Atif Khan to reinvent networking for the cloud era. Amir’s vision is to deliver the Cloud Network as-a-Service (CNaaS). Before Viptela, Amir held leadership roles at Cisco, Juniper, and Nortel. He holds 4 patents. Amir earned an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Mississippi.

"Alkira has reinvented networking for the cloud era by delivering the network cloud, the first global unified network infrastructure with on-demand hybrid and multi-cloud connectivity, integrated network and security services, end-to-end visibility, controls and governance, all delivered as-a-service."