Introducing Pensa Networks…

by Ujwal Setlur-CEO, Pensa Networks

As I write this post to help introduce what we are doing at Pensa Networks, it’s important to think back about the reasons that led us to embark on this journey that we are on today.

With the adoption of cloud and virtualized workloads increasing rapidly, the heretofore staid networking industry is undergoing a revolution rather than an evolution. A plethora of seemingly complex virtualization technologies have emerged just in the last couple of years and more acronyms such as SDN, NFV, VNF, VXLAN, etc. have been added to an already rich alphabet-soup. In fact, the entire process of building and deploying a network has been turned on its head. These new technologies are designed to address the demand for agility and cost efficiency, but often leave IT professionals at a loss for where to start.

Pensa Networks was founded on the back of several experiences that led to inspiration that an innovative cloud hosted virtual lab is needed to help jumpstart the adoption of some of the sweeping innovations that are hitting our industry. The defining “Aha” moment came to us while listening to a technical presentation on network virtualization in the data center. Just a listing of all the ingredients involved made our heads spin, and we were left wondering how we expect our customers to grok this and actually get this into deployment. Here are some examples of the conversations we would routinely hear in EBCs and IT conferences:

This is too big and risky a change for my enterprise. Where do I start?

I don’t quite trust this new technology to invest heavily into it. Can I quickly test it to get a feel for its features and go beyond what their marketing claims it can do?

Openstack/vSphere Networking is adding too much complexity too quickly and I’m not sure of the benefits of trying these new technologies.

I need to hire experts in this new-fangled technology, but no one seems to have enough experience with it.

It takes too long just to get all the equipment and set it up.

What do I need, and how much of it? How do I configure this stuff?

Will my virtual network be as good or better than my physical deployment?

Will my virtual network be secure?

What happens when my virtual network fails?

I don’t have the lab or budget to try the use cases I have in mind.

I am building this great new VNF. How do I prove to my customer that it is the greatest thing since sliced bread?

I plan to deploy my apps very frequently just like webscale companies. How do I rapidly reconfigure my network to keep up?

These are the questions and comments that are essentially hampering the adoption of a set of really exciting technologies that have the potential to redefine how applications are deployed and accessed.

What if you had a place where you could go and get started immediately? What if there was a cloud based lab that helped you build your custom network in a painless manner that actually worked within a few clicks? A lab in the clouds? Is that even possible? We think so! This is precisely our vision behind launching Pensa Networks.

We are excited to start sharing our progress at www.pensanetworks.com, and encourage you to tweet your favorite story to @pensanetworks or email us at info@pensanetworks.com. We will feature the best stories on our site, anonymously of course. We look forward to connect with you to share more details in the near future.