Cloud networking software enables data transmission within and between clouds by deploying and orchestrating virtual networking functions. Cloud networking is entirely software driven, with each virtual function playing a role in defining how the cloud entities communicate at a logical level, and enabling connectivity between different data centers and cloud providers.
Cloud networking providers use the native networking capabilities from each provider, orchestrating their configurations from a central management solution. Additionally, cloud networking vendors can provide specialized functions such as firewalls or routers with more features compared to counterparts offered by the cloud providers. With these capabilities, cloud networking vendors have to address everyday networking: specific challenges such as network design, deployment, management, and security, but with a cloud twist. Network segmentation now needs to span multiple and distributed environments, monitoring and observability will have greater and more complex networks to understand, optimization should span cloud-to-cloud intelligence, and even routing brings in new networking functions such as transit gateways.
The best way of addressing all these challenges is to abstract all networking constructs and present them in a single orchestration solution that can handle multiple types of infrastructure and provision networking instances with minimal configuration. This consolidated orchestration changes the cloud networking experience from an overwhelming problem to a much more casual activity. Connecting another public cloud environment should feel like ‘just another instance to connect’ rather than a whole architecture overhaul.
At this higher level of abstraction, application-to-application connectivity is one of the most important use cases that cloud networking solutions need to address. Rather than having a networks team to handle networking constructs at layer 3 and 4, which can then be used by the application team, a cloud networking solution can provision layer 3 and 4 instances automatically, allowing the DevOps teams to work exclusively at layer 7 and focus on content-aware application-to-application connectivity.
With this type of capability at the application teams’ fingertips, applications no longer have to be bound to a single region or provider, expanding use cases to multicloud, hybrid cloud, and edge locations. Cloud networking reduces the amount of vendor-specific knowledge required to interconnect environments by offering a unified and consistent management interface. Rather than adopting an unsophisticated ‘connecting multiple environments’ approach, we can reframe cloud networking as one of the core enablers of developing and maintaining cutting-edge applications using all the available types of infrastructure…
Chris is extremely knowledgeable and, more importantly, readily shares that knowledge with his peers to promote better overall understanding and improvement.
Chris is technically creative, hard working, and extraordinarily effective at working with both internal and external technical expert communities. A pleasure to have had on the team at CableLabs. I fully expect him to significantly move his organization and the industry.
Chris was the driving force behind the creation of the ISOC Colorado chapter. I appreciated his leadership and technical skills and his determination. I enjoyed working with Chris on this project and I am looking forward to doing it again.
Together we conquered many challenges, won impossible battles in the vendor industry and created a unique security practice. He has an interesting set of talents of being an engineer, innovator, and a thought leader, but never mixes any of these roles. That is what makes him successful as a leader. “Never be comfortable” is what Chris would tell me, which is what pushed me to do my first tech talk. I now have dozens behind me within some of the largest conferences known in the security vendor industry. Chris is nothing short of supernatural.
It was a pleasure to work with Chris. Chris possesses very detailed technical knowledge and solid experience, but never lost sight of his strategic and business goals when using that knowledge and experience.
In a wireless organization the network your products operate on needs to be reliable, dependable and operating at top efficiency. Chris made sure that was a reality. Chris was a leader in the day to day operation of our network, on initiating improvement designs for the future and helping out the other departments to close performance gaps. There was never a problem to hard to solve, a solution he was not willing to seek out or a cutting edge idea he hadn’t already researched.
I enjoy working with him on a professional and personal level.
Chris is one of the most professional individuals I have ever worked with. His dedication to the success of our organization was paramount. I always relied on him to engage in intricate troubles knowing they would receive appropriate attention and follow through. Chris is an immediate asset to any organization and is most certainly.
Chris is always happy to contribute to a discussion or to an issue and is more than happy to lend a hand to both assist team members with their tasks or to lend his expertise in order to benefit the requestor. He is constantly providing knowledge transfer in a peer to peer manner, engaging others to work together to move a project forward or to resolve an issue. Most importantly, Chris is an open and honest communicator about whatever the topic of the moment is, something that is refreshing in today’s world. I could always count of Chris to lend his opinion or his ideas to any subject matter, and this becomes an important contribution for any team. Chris has tremendous talent and is a very hard working, team player. I would welcome Chris to my team at any point in the future.
I have worked with Chris on several projects over the years. His leadership, cooperation, and execution skills are first class. Chris looks at the big picture, identifies necessary actions, builds a plan, and gets the project done
Chris is an engineer and leader of the highest caliber as demonstrated by his ongoing volunteer responsibilities within the Internet technical community and his unwavering drive.
Chris is an excellent organizer and leader with vision and energy. He pulled together the Colorado Chapter of the Internet Society, wrote the inital by-laws and saw the process through to the actual chapter formation.
Chris consistently generates and delivers on new and creative ideas both within the guided bounds of a project or team goal as well as when left unbounded and allowed to explore. In addition Chris is a great team player willing to help whenever asked. Chris is also a competent and organized leader with great communication skills capable of managing projects from inception to completion.
We hired Chris with high expectations. He quickly proved to be a good choice as he grasped new concepts exceptionally well and showed an aggressive personal learning regimen, surpassing his peers. I would highly recommend Chris in his future endeavors.
Chris is highly technical and has excellent organizational and follow up skills. I assigned Chris several initiatives while assigned to my team and his performance was exceptional. He is self motivated and has extensive technical knowledge.
Chris has the talent to completely embrace and encompass a technology and from that drive results. It is obvious that Chris enjoys sharing his knowledge base and ideas with others. It was a pleasure working with Chris.
Chris is very knowledgeable, is always willing to explain and discuss, and is great at pulling together everyone’s input and moving things forward. Working with him has been a great experience.
Chris is an exceptionally energetic individual, a talented thinker and an accomplished public speaker. He is a very rewarding person to work with due to the level of organization he brings to every project. He has vision and probity, a rare combination. I has been a great privilege to work with him.
Chris was always on top of current technology and how this technology would fit into his current network environment. Chris was a pleasure to work with and will be an asset to any organization lucky enough to hire him.
Chris is a great asset to any company. His dedication and drive for results makes him a consistent high achiever.
Chris is one of the sharpest minds you will be lucky to come across, whether in a personal or professional setting. His ability to cut through the noise and see the relevant elements and data in any situation is remarkable.
Chris is intensely focused, dedicated, and capable. He absorbs and synthesizes data quickly, finds the leverage points, focuses on what matters, and delivers results. Any high-performing team will get a boost from engaging with Chris.
He would always be available as a sounding board for complex issues and provided me with amazing insight on long term planning and ways to scale up teams and business processes.
As Chris’ Editor for Exploring IPv6, a Day One book, he kept to his schedule, output exceedingly lucid prose, and gave a sense of instructional design to an extraordinary tough technology to deploy. On time, better than could be expected, and executed with grace.
Chris was an amazing colleague to work with. I admire his ability to understand very technical concepts as well as business and market driven ones. He has amazing stakeholder management skills, and has the ability to build relationships and manage working groups and teams. He is a true leader who is