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Pertino is expanding its cloud-based network-as-a-service solution by offering big data analytics capabilities to its platform, adding new network service applications to its app store and extending its reach through the launch of a formal partner program.
The new capabilities and partner program, announced Sept. 22, come after Pertino first launched its solution in February 2013, and almost 11 months after the company rolled out its AppScape app store. Pertino is one of a growing number of players—both established vendors like Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks, as well as a range of smaller startups—looking to offer network virtualization solutions to organizations having to deal with rapidly changing network demands brought on by such trends as cloud computing, big data and increased mobility.
Pertino, through its Cloud Network Engine platform and AppScape online store, is embracing the cloud as the best way to deliver network services, which Chief Marketing Officer Todd Krautkremer said reduces the complexity that is found in many cloud computing solutions and the range of network virtualization offerings in the market.
“We sit on the host machine itself,” Krautkremer told eWEEK in a recent interview in Boston. “We’re not an overlay. … We’re independent of the physical underlying infrastructure.”
According to the company, the new big data storage and analytics capabilities in Cloud Network Engine bring together Amazon Web Services Kinesis and Redshift infrastructure with complex event processing and MapReduce—the software framework for Hadoop—to support those apps in the AppScape store that require highly scalable deep packet analysis and correlation, such as threat analysis.
Pertino leverages cloud computing, virtualization and software-defined networks (SDNs) to enable customers to easily create, manage and then shut down networks. Organizations can use Pertino’s Cloud Network Engine and other technologies to create secure virtual networks that are hosted on such cloud platforms as Amazon Web Services and Rackspace. With an Internet connection, a Pertino subscription and an email address, businesses can quickly create a WAN, deploy it, add people to it and shut it down when it’s no longer needed.
The goal is to give customers an intuitive, simple and affordable—no need for expensive hardware or expertise for running an infrastructure—way to use the cloud for their networking needs.
The apps in the AppScape store are another way for businesses to build out their networking capabilities. New network services apps include UsageMonitor, which uses big data analytics to offer near-real-time monitoring of network bandwidth consumption by users and devices; ADConnect, which extends Active Directory DNS resolution services to Pertino cloud networks; and NameStation, which assigns default names to all devices, eliminating the need for IP addresses to reach a device. Usage Monitor leverages MapReduce and other big data capabilities to let customers drill down into specific traffic in a more granular way than other vendor tools, Krautkremer said.
Two other apps are focused on security, he said. GeoView Pro can track and map the location of users and devices down to the street level, so lost and stolen devices can more easily be located and removed from the network through a few clicks. Through Pertino Desktop, customers can remotely and securely access their desktop from any device. The app, which will be available in the fourth quarter, also enables the IT staff to offer remote support.
All the new apps except for Pertino Desktop will be offered for free for customers using Pertino’s Business and Enterprise plans.
Along with the new big data capabilities and services apps, Pertino also launched its BlueSky partner program, which includes the BlueSky Partner Portal to support channel selling, marketing and support activities.