There have been some exciting developments at PacketFabric around our recently announced strategic alliance with Unitas Global. Now, with Unitas Global announcing its acquisition of the network business assets of INAP, the alliance is getting richer, so it’s a good time to take a deeper look at what this partnership means.
The challenge of the multi-hybrid WAN
Yes, I did say “multi-hybrid,” and I understand that this is not the usual formulation. But the fact of the matter is that enterprises face a challenging hybrid scenario in two key WAN domains.
The first hybrid WAN domain is hybrid and multi-cloud core IT infrastructure. This cloud core is the center of the digital business. Every mission-critical workflow is accomplished via this cloudy infrastructure, which consists of private and colocation-based data centers, hyperscale cloud providers, enterprise SaaS, and a host of other providers including independent cloud providers, Internet Exchange (IX) providers, disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) providers, and more.
The whole point behind cloud adoption is gaining the agility to meet the scale, performance, security, and velocity demands of digital business. But traditional interconnection is the antithesis of agility, with glacial deployment timelines and long-term fixed contracts that lock enterprises into WAN bandwidth commitments that might become far less relevant due to market, business operations, technology, or other fast-emerging factors.
The second hybrid WAN domain concerns the shift to hybrid work. The pandemic has set off a landslide that is sweeping away assumptions of how and where we work. As this tectonic shift is proving itself durable, businesses are adjusting to the fact that an incredibly high percentage of workers don’t want to return to the office full time.
As a result of hybrid work arrangements, many centralized office leases are being terminated, business worker density is shifting to different urban locations, with retail businesses following the money. The result of all of this change is a huge redistribution and relocation of last-mile access connectivity that is starting, but will continue to pick up momentum as existing multi-year access contracts come to term. It is arguable that hybrid work will have as much of an impact on the WAN over the next several years as hybrid cloud has had in the past several years.
The WAN is changing radically. Enterprises need a holistic approach to re-imagining, re-architecting, and cost-optimizing the WAN for maximum agility to meet the moment.
H1: What PacketFabric and Unitas Global (including the INAP network business) bring to the picture
What’s so cool about the strategic alliance we’ve struck up with Unitas Global is that our networks and offerings are so complementary and so relevant to the times we’re going through, at least in regards to the evolution of the WAN. The acquisition of INAP’s network business by Unitas Global adds further breadth and depth.
Here’s what that looks like:
- The PacketFabric NaaS platform, including a 70T+ backbone network providing Layer 2 and Layer 3 services, supporting data center, hybrid cloud and multi-cloud connectivity at multi-100Gbps speeds with full path and hardware redundancy across hundreds of data centers, backed by a five-nines carrier-class SLA.
- Unitas Reach™, an intelligent, software-defined network fabric with strategic interconnections to hundreds of other networks and fiber access providers extends the network access to the edge, including over 900 carrier-neutral data centers and 50 million enterprise locations in more than 160 countries.
- Unitas Nexus™, the world’s first automated software platform dedicated to connecting enterprise edge locations to the cloud everywhere. Unitas Nexus™ provides unmatched visibility into available global connectivity options with a single, streamlined view, solving the challenge of designing and buying connectivity.
- The PacketFabric self-service portal and REST API that enable real-time provisioning of high-speed interconnectivity and flexible, usage-based consumption and billing.
- The INAP Network Business brings network technologies, including its patented, intelligent routing software, Managed Internet Route Optimizer (MIRO); over a thousand multinational enterprise customers; plus a global network serving 18 markets with Performance IP™
The strategic alliance between PacketFabric and Unitas Global can deliver edge to everywhere solutions that meet the needs of enterprises for a holistic, modern, and agile WAN architecture. The WAN is evolving to meet the challenges of hybrid work and hybrid cloud.
Learn more
If you’re intrigued and want to learn more, you can check out PacketFabric services, request a demo, or just register an account and get started today. You can also visit the Unitas Global website and request a contact.