There was no limit to the fireworks shot across the Nile River at Mobility Field Day 12 #MFD12, when it came to the discussion between Nile and the delegates. This was to be expected when a company enters the field with an industry changing model.
NaaS or Network as a Service has places where disruption is ripe while other places are fighting the paradigm shift. In the past, Nile has been more stealth than forthcoming with their plans for deploying NaaS. That changed with MFD12.
This is not the first time that Nile has presented at a Tech Field Day Event. In the past, Nile has presented at Networking Field Day twice, NFD32 and NFD34. Neither of those events had the fireworks that arose at MFD12. Nile asked for more feedback from the delegates and they got it.
Navigating the Nile
Nile added some touches about the physical design to symbolize the Nile River. When I was at Nile’s office in San Jose, a few months ago, recording an episode for Towers Edge, Dipen Vardhe said the lines on the face of their APs are meant to symbolize the Nile River as it carves the desert sands. A much more environmental carving of the landscape happened at MFD12.
From the beginning, Nile started to spell out the path we would take to sharing how the Nile model fits in a world filled with Cisco, Juniper, Meter, and Ramen. Established companies are fighting for the same dollars. Nile’s pitch is that they are ready for the small organizations to the largest organizations. My fellow delegate, Lee Badman (WiredNot), jumped on this distinction.
Is Nile ready for the large organizations that have incumbent vendors well established with IT teams running support?
The question doesn’t come specifically about the technology, as many have said the hardware is largely the same now. The special sauce comes from the management software, the partnership between the vendor with any partners or installers, and the organization.
Fruits of the Nile
The fruits that Nile are selling is a revolutionary new way of doing networks. Nile Co-founder Suresh Katukam shared that how network engineers currently manage and install networks is antiquated.
Suresh specifically called out that the very Silicon Valley networking companies mentioned above taught us Engineers how to install networks. They’ve been teaching us for years how a network should be built. They build the products that function in a certain way. They build the courses we take that is beat into our heads of the proper ‘best practices’ for networking.
Nile is attempting to change those best practices and cause an upheaval in the industry. That leads to the fireworks mentioned above.
Nile said that 60% of their customers switched because of how they are eliminating the LAN attack surface. Zero Trust has been a buzz word for years. Nile is integrating Zero Trust principles into their design across the network. There is no legacy way of networking when it comes to Nile.
The concept of VLANs doesn’t really exist anymore in the Nile world, at least from a configuration stand point. All traffic is isolated at the Layer 3 even though WiFi operates at Layer 2 and below. The Zero Trust idea of “Never Trust, Always Verify” is inherent in how Nile is building their networks. This removes many of the attack vectors that exist in legacy networking. Other vendors are trying to tack on Zero Trust. Nile has built it from the ground up.
As an aside note, I’d love to see Private 5G as a focus of these type of companies. Nile has said multiple times that they don’t see the value so currently do not have plans to move into this industry.
Flooding the Nile
The Nile River’s annual flooding was a pivotal event in ancient Egyptian civilization. The floods provided fertile soil for growing crops, washed away salts from the soil, and nourished the Egyptian civilization for almost 5,000 years. Just like the floods, Nile introduced something I did not expect, Nile Sensors.
Other companies are handling the monitoring of the WiFi networks with on AP radios or relying on 3rd party vendors. Nile has found value in building an overlay sensor network of their own and having a scanning radio built into their APs.
NaaS relies on a heavy amount of data to adjust the network automatically. Data is the new gold when it comes to tech companies and Nile is no different. They are requiring as much data as possible to achieve a 360 Degree Monitor.
Their APs have a scanning radio that acts as a built in sensor to see the network at the AP level. Then the usages of specifically placed sensors around the site to capture data from a client level view. Combined these two sources provide a better view of how the network is operating.
Is Nile Large Enterprise Ready?
The question that WiredNot mentioned about being ready for large enterprises is still up in the air. I can’t say one way or the other. Other MFD presenters such as Ubiquiti are looking to break into the same enterprises. The idea of environmental change worries a lot of engineers. Measurements like TCO is not something many engineers think about, but it is a metric the C-level relies on heavily. Maybe some CTO will discover the abilities of Nile and be willing to take a chance on their model.
When it comes to greenfield sites and smaller organizations that do not have the depth of IT support may find the NaaS model as a solution to their issues. Will Nile be able to provide the SLAs need by these organizations? We have yet to see that with the very few use cases and actual client’s discussions being available.
Mobility Field Day was a great step in the right direction for Nile coming out of stealth mode. WiFi engineers are a close knit community and has some very vocal voices, some of who were in the room. Events like Tech Field Day are good for the industry and the companies who participate. I’m grateful Nile was willing to step up to the plate. I hope other companies pushing new industry changing technologies to see how valuable these events are at providing exposure to an industry filled with people who say this is how we have always done it. Nile navigated MFD12 properly.
You can watch our Towers Edge Episode at Nile HQ below:
