Alkira platform delivers major efficiency gains for firms

A study conducted by industry analyst firm Nemertes has revealed significant operational and financial benefits for companies using Alkira's network infrastructure-as-a-service platform.

The research highlighted a notable 96% reduction in calendar time and an 84% decrease in staff time required to provision new cloud environments. This efficiency has allowed businesses to swiftly expand into new cloud regions, with 25% of the participants having added at least one new cloud provider and 58% expanding to new cloud areas since implementing Alkira.

Amir Khan, CEO of Alkira, commented on the findings: "This research underscores the tremendous value that Alkira's cloud-native networking model can deliver to enterprises grappling with the complexity of various network environments. By simplifying network operations and accelerating cloud connectivity, we're helping our customers become more agile, efficient, and secure."

Nemertes' Chief Technology Officer, John Burke, stated, "We interviewed more than a dozen Alkira customers to do a study of the real economic value they derive from Alkira, and they were happily surprised at how often they found multiple ways to get value and how significant the value delivered was."

The report discovered that Alkira customers saw a 44% decrease in the number of network devices, including a 73% reduction in firewalls required. There was also a 47% decrease in staff hours needed to manage cloud networks, eliminating the necessity for an average of 4.8 additional network hires. One financial telecoms company significantly reduced its firewall count by 94%, along with a 75% reduction in full-time employees needed to manage these firewalls.

Steve Savage, Network Architect at Infor, shared his experience, saying, "The hidden costs of our multi-cloud infrastructure were staggering once we correlated the data across regions, accounts, and platforms. With Alkira, we've not only reduced our cloud routing and firewall footprint by over 60%, but we've transformed our cloud network integration process from a series of niche one-off exercises into a streamlined, repeatable methodology. This allows us to accelerate time to value while maintaining robust security across our cloud estate."

The study noted improvements in partner connectivity and data centre operations, with the time required to connect a new data centre to the hybrid cloud dropping by 93%, and the time to add a new partner to their extranet decreased by 91%. One large manufacturer managed a 99% faster rate of adding new partners to its extranet with Alkira.

The research indicated that deploying new security services with Alkira took an average of 80% less time, reducing the calendar time by 93% from over 17 days to just over one day. A large software company managed to add new security services in cloud environments 99% faster.

Alkira's as-a-service model evidently facilitated smoother networking from mergers and acquisitions, with two-thirds of the participants reporting a 98% reduction in staff time and an 88% experiencing a 91% calendar time reduction for onboarding new partners.