CXOtoday agreed to an exclusive interview with Prasanna C, General Manager and Head of Business, Polarain by Lightstorm, said:
- What are the network-related challenges facing Indian companies in the cloud era?
Enterprises face several challenges as cloud adoption progresses. Cloud-based applications and services require extremely high speeds, low latency and higher bandwidth. Unfortunately, traditional networks were not designed to provide this kind of performance. Additionally, cloud adoption is leading to more and more hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures that are complex to manage. This is further exacerbated by the difficulty companies face in hiring and retaining high-demand cloud talent.
- Learn more about how NaaS can help companies address network challenges. What are the drawbacks of traditional MPLS-based networks?
Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) offers several key benefits. The biggest advantage of using a NaaS platform is that setting up your network infrastructure is faster than ever before. It is also very cost effective as capital expenditures can be effectively converted into operational expenditures. A NaaS platform designed for the cloud era, Polarin can get your network up and running within minutes.
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a robust technology for legacy applications, but it wasn’t designed for the cloud. As enterprises move to the cloud, they find MPLS to be very inflexible, expensive, and more importantly, they don’t control the network. Also, building an MPLS network takes a long time.
- Increasing Relevance of NaaS in the Cloud Era?
With NaaS, companies can easily leverage the cloud to grow their business. This allows you to reduce your investment in network construction without compromising network performance, reliability and security. Polarin is designed for the cloud, giving companies complete control to design and deploy networks according to their specific needs.
- What exactly is Polarin? What impact will it have on the Indian corporate segment?
Polarin was conceived with the idea to help enterprises easily and efficiently manage increasingly complex hybrid and multi-cloud network infrastructures. It not only gives enterprises unparalleled control, but also enables them to scale quickly as needed. It is India’s first self-service NaaS platform designed to meet the demands of new-age network infrastructure.
We have already helped several Indian companies streamline their processes and leverage the scalability and flexibility of their networks to achieve their business goals. We believe this will enable Indian businesses to truly benefit from the cloud, improving operational efficiency and improving network economics.
- what are your future plans? What new products/features are you currently developing?
Over the next few years, we will be adding new features to Polarin and expanding our partner ecosystem. As for Polarin’s future expansion, we are considering expanding geographically and beyond India as there is very strong demand for these services across emerging markets from the Middle East to South East Asia.
We continue to have ecosystem partners, or technology solution providers, in our market who can extend Polarin connectivity services beyond the cloud and CDN to a variety of the world’s most popular private cloud and SaaS applications, among others. I will add more. each market.
We are constantly working with early adopters and leading technology partners across a range of enterprise industries to provide the best technology solutions that meet the needs of the moment.
- Tell us a little bit about Lightstorm and its history. How is Lightstorm developing digital infrastructure for enterprises?
Lightstorm was founded in 2020 to transform the digital networking space. Emerging market companies like India use networks designed for retail customers, which meet specific requirements such as ultra-high speed, low latency, extreme availability, scalability and reliability. It’s not meant to be. We have devised several products to holistically address the problems faced by businesses.
First, we are building SmartNet, a utility-grade fiber network that connects the country’s major economic hubs. Indian networks are used by some of the largest hyperscalers and enterprises. We launched his SmartNet in Indonesia last year and will soon launch other countries in Southeast Asia.
Polarin uses a resilient SmartNet foundation to deliver 100% uptime, low latency and top-notch network performance. In addition, we are building a network of open cable landing stations (CLS) that will provide diverse routes and open networks as bandwidth demand continues to grow. We will be working with Cinturion to land the TEAS cable in India.
- What are the trends in enterprise networking?
There are a couple of trends that stand out. The first is the increasing adoption of the cloud. A recent report by NASSCOM and Oliver Wyman said that the cloud will account for 8% of India’s GDP by 2026 and create 14 million jobs. New businesses are cloud-native or adopt a cloud-first approach, and large enterprises are moving to multi-cloud deployments.
The second big trend is network automation. The increasing complexity of the cloud and the diversification of networks require enterprises to use AI/ML tools to automate and simplify network operations for easier management.
Increasingly, businesses are looking for networks that are not only easy to manage, but are designed with the user experience at the center of their design. Enterprise network management typically includes several tools from different vendors. As networks grow in complexity, integrating them becomes a challenge. A Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) solution can help you meet these challenges while controlling costs.
- Other than NaaS, what other areas of focus are Indian companies focusing on?
We will create a network of open CLS to eliminate international traffic bottlenecks around India and enable more businesses to use India as a gateway while at the same time providing seamless access for multinationals. make it profitable. Connect with international geography.
In addition to Polarin, we also offer Lightstorm’s SmartNet products for the hyperscale network requirements of domestic enterprises. We continue to expand our footprint beyond Tier I cities, which is also consistent with edge penetration where data moves closer to the user.
