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Graphiant Transforms the Networking Landscape and Becomes a Shining Star in Silicon Valley

Graphiant is a Silicon Valley-based trailblazer in next-generation Edge services, which is pushing boundaries in network solutions to meet the evolving needs of today’s fast-paced business environment. Having recently raised a $62 million Series B with the Valley’s most notable investors, such as Two Bear Capital, Sequoia, Atlantic Bridge, and Harpoon Venture Capital Partners (among others), Graphiant is clearly doing something right.


Enterprises are running a mix of corporate and cloud applications. Those applications are consumed and spun up/down frequently. Users must cross a digital wilderness that businesses can’t totally control or even have visibility into. What’s even more difficult is that this digital wilderness is changing by the minute.


Graphiant’s need in the market couldn’t be more apparent. Businesses have long relied on traditional IT models, such as “multi-protocol label switching” (MPLS) to run their IT systems. However, new technologies are making the likes of MPLS by itself problematic in terms of scalability, reduced agility and latency. This has become especially true amid moves to the cloud, where MPLS has caused bottlenecks in performance, issues with seamless connectivity, and complexities in managing multi-cloud environments.


MPLS may be thought of as a super-efficient post office that uses labels to quickly direct packets to their destinations and ensure speedy and reliable data deliveries. Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) may be considered as a smart traffic controller that sees the entire road system (or in this case, the network) and can intelligently route traffic based on the current conditions to ensure optimal performance and reliability. And SRv6 (Segment Routing over IPv6) may be thought of as a customizable GPS for one’s data, which allows for a tailored route to guide packets through specific paths in the network, which enhances efficiency and flexibility.


Currently, MPLS and SD-WAN don’t meet the needs of modern enterprises, and they have had a tendency to essentially break down.


To address this issue, Graphiant has created a network that harnesses scale, reliability, privacy, and the security of MPLS, the agility and cost savings of SD-WAN, and the ability of these systems to interact seamlessly with cloud services via a private network delivered as a service.


The technology landscape has evolved to provide nearly everything as a service: For example, computing is delivered via the cloud, and voice is provided as a web-based service, among many others. Providing platforms and capabilities as a service also enables agility and lowers costs.


Until now, networks have not joined the consortium of capabilities sold as a service.


In turn, Graphiant’s “Network Edge” platform bridges the gaps between traditional networking models and brings together the strengths of MPLS, SD-WAN, and SRv6 to ensure robustness, agility, and flexibility for modern enterprises – all delivered as-a-Service.


Graphiant provides a next-gen network edge that combines the performance and security of MPLS with the agility that is only attainable with "as-a-Service" delivery. By combining modern “as-a-Service” delivery with a high-performance private network, Graphiant offers true SLA-class performance at up to 70% less cost, the company tells TechEchelon.


Graphiant removes the need for Network Architects to build bespoke networks between every resource, hybrid cloud, edge network, customer, and partner. Instead, they simply connect each resource to the Graphiant Stateless Core, and the Graphiant Core handles all the routing. Traffic remains encrypted from edge to edge, ensuring complete security and privacy. And, SLA-grade performance is guaranteed.


Additionally, Graphiant’s Network Edge enables organizations to tackle today’s most challenging use cases with Internet-class agility via enterprise connectivity (without setting up tunnels), business-to-business connectivity (without complex DMZs and firewalls), and cloud connectivity.


Graphiant’s goal is to solve enterprises’ significant challenges, which include connecting resources, clouds, and applications across the diverse digital landscape.

True Leadership of a Founder


The Founder and CEO of Graphiant, Khalid Raza, has led significant advancements in the network domain. His leadership and innovations have shaped some of the most significant trends in this space.


He co-founded Viptela in 2012, a pioneering venture that addressed the enterprise’s growing need for low-cost connectivity coupled with Internet class agility. In just five years, Viptela grew into a massive $610 million acquisition by Cisco in 2017, which strongly affirmed Khalid’s foresight into the needs of the networking world.


To truly appreciate Raza’s innovations, it’s essential to dive into a bit of networking history. The late 1990s marked a significant shift in enterprise networking, with the emergence of MPLS around 1999. As a new approach to Wide Area Networking (WAN), MPLS combined speed, scalability, reliability, and security, making it an ideal connectivity solution for enterprises.


Raza was at the forefront of this revolution. He not only was part of the team that designed and built MPLS networks for Fortune 50 enterprises, but he also accumulated multiple MPLS patents along the way.


In turn, MPLS was a game-changer. It rocketed from being a new market entrant to generating $50 billion in revenue in under a decade. However, as with all technologies, MPLS had its limitations, especially as data volumes surged and costs became a significant concern for enterprises.


This has laid the groundwork for his current venture, which stands to further evolve the successes of SD-WAN with Viptela and address the challenges of modern enterprise networks to make yet another mark in the industry.


Graphiant’s Next Steps


As the global business environment grows increasingly digital, the lines between office spaces, cloud services, and customer systems will continue to blur. This will further pronounce the need for agile, efficient, and cost-effective networking solutions.


While the trajectory of Graphiant is impressive to many, it's more than just a tale of a successful start-up. It's a testament to the transformative power of innovation, leadership, and vision when they coalesce around a truly valuable technology.


Graphiant’s journey serves as both inspiration and roadmap for what’s possible in the realm of digital connectivity. If history is any indication of what’s to come, Raza and Graphiant are set to redefine the future again.


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