Siaras has unveiled cloudScape, a software platform for network service providers enabling them to seamlessly federate cloud-based virtual data centers with on-demand, intercloud WAN connectivity. Using cloudScape, network service providers can deliver integrated multi-cloud solutions relying on their own public or managed private cloud assets as well as third-party public clouds such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, IBM SoftLayer, and others. More importantly, by leveraging the provider's own network assets, cloudScape allows network service providers to offer a much more complete and open cloud product to their enterprise customers than those available from large public cloud providers.
Founded in 2013 by industry veterans Vivek Ragavan and Sig Luft, Siaras has leveraged the deep networking roots of its technical team in order to solve real and intractable problems inherent in cloud computing as enterprises contemplate moving more mission critical apps to the cloud.
Siaras president and CEO Ragavan sees open cloud-to-WAN integration as "an important enabler to much broader cloud adoption, especially infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). Despite widespread growth thus far, cloud operators have largely picked off the 'low-hanging apps' that can operate quite well with unmanaged internet connectivity. Continued growth requires a more cloud-like approach to the WAN."
Siaras cloudScape
Siaras cloudScape, which allows service providers to build "overclouds" with multiple heterogeneous data center and WAN "underclouds" provides the following functions:
1. Automatic orchestration of open intercloud WANs in response to real time
needs between virtual data centers.
2. On demand intercloud WAN connectivity, or WAN-as-a-service (WANaaS),
enabling connections to be spun up and torn down in a matter of minutes.
3. Traffic-engineering-as-a-service (TEaaS) allowing per-app, policy-based
sharing of WAN connectivity.
4. Virtual points-of-presence (POPs) inside third-party public clouds
facilitating the on-demand establishment of virtual data centers along
with requisite WAN connectivity. This is especially important for cloud
bursting, data base back up, and disaster recovery scenarios.
According to Michael Howard, co-founder and principal analyst with Infonetics Research, "There is no question that Siaras has identified a significant problem area. Enterprises today face two suboptimal alternatives with regard to intercloud WAN connectivity. They can sacrifice performance and possibly even security by using the internet. Or they can accept the long turn up times, lengthy contracts, and service inflexibility associated with existing dedicated connectivity products. Siaras offers an open method for making WAN connectivity available in a cloud-like manner."
Siaras recently completed a proof of concept with KVH in Tokyo, which provides extensive network and data center products to its large enterprise customer base and is partnering with Siaras to combine these diverse assets into a comprehensive offering for their customers.
