Cloudflare Acquired Nefeli Networks Debuts Magic Cloud Networking

Highlights:

• As per the company’s statement, the service offers a unified interface for managing networks that extend across various public clouds.
• According to Cloudflare, the service empowers companies to establish rules that specify the configuration of a network.

Recently, Cloudflare Inc acquired Nefeli Networks and Debuts Magic Cloud Networking, a novel service that enables organizations to connect workloads across diverse cloud platforms seamlessly.

The presented product relies on technology acquired by the company through a recent acquisition. This startup had previously secured approximately USD 9 million in funding from investors such as New Enterprise Associates. Cloudflare unveiled the deal earlier recently, refraining from disclosing the financial details.

Businesses frequently need to create network connections across various public clouds. For instance, a revenue forecasting application operating on Azure might need to connect to a Google Cloud database containing earnings data from the last quarter. Establishing connections between these diverse workloads poses a challenge due to the use of different networking technologies by cloud providers, which may not always seamlessly interoperate.

Cloudflare asserts that its Magic Cloud Networking service tackles this challenge. The service, as per the company, offers a unified management interface for overseeing networks that extend across various public clouds. Utilizing a centralized interface proves to be more straightforward compared to the conventional method of managing each cloud separately with distinct tools.

As per Cloudflare, the service enables companies to establish rules outlining the configuration of a network. For instance, an administrator could create a policy stipulating that the traffic between two applications should be directed through an encrypted connection. Magic Cloud Networking identifies instances where the configuration of a cloud resource deviates from the administrators’ set policies and autonomously rectifies the issue.

The service is now accessible as a component of the Cloudflare One platform. Introduced in 2020, this platform allows customers to utilize the company’s network to transfer data traffic among their data centers, cloud environments, and other technological assets. Magic Cloud Networking incorporates tools that streamline the process of linking a cloud environment to Cloudflare One.

In a blog post, David Naylor, an Engineer at Nefeli Networks, and Steve Welham, the company’s Director of Product, elaborated on the matter, “It configures native cloud constructs such as VPN gateways, routes, and security groups to securely connect your cloud VPC network to Cloudflare One. As you change your network, Cloudflare takes care of route management, injecting and withdrawing routes globally across Cloudflare and all connected cloud provider networks.”

In situations where the inherent automation functionalities prove to be inadequate, Magic Cloud Networking offers an application programming interface (API). The API enables integration of the service with additional cloud infrastructure automation tools of the organization. These tools are capable of performing maintenance duties via Magic Cloud Networking.

The service additionally offers supplementary functionalities that are designed to facilitate the daily tasks of administrators. A tool exists that delineates the assets present in the cloud environments of an organization and exhibits technical information pertaining to each asset, including the internal network to which it is connected. Moreover, the service presents this information in the form of a graph, which aids administrators in comprehending the architecture of their network.

Bob Laliberte, Research Principal Analyst, said to a leading media house, “The majority of organizations are now using multiple public clouds in a meaningful way today, which is driving the need for solutions that drive greater operational efficiencies and agility. Cloudflare recognized this need and with the acquisition, it can leverage Nefeli to provide multi-cloud networking capabilities. This is clearly a win for Nefeli and Cloudflare customers and could mark the start of consolidation in the Multicloud Networking space as established vendors look to add this capability to their portfolio.”

He mentioned that noteworthy contenders in this market include companies such as Aviatrix Systems Inc., Prosimo Inc., and Alkira Inc.

Magic Cloud Networking marks the most recent addition to a sequence of new offerings that Cloudflare has unveiled in the past few quarters. The company’s preceding product launch occurred recently, introducing a service named Firewall for AI, specifically crafted to safeguard large language models from malicious network traffic.