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Its Time May Have Finally Arrived
With rising operational demands, tighter budgets, and escalating security risks, IT leaders can no longer afford to rely on outdated assumptions about network infrastructure. Now is the moment for IT leaders to rethink how network infrastructure is designed, deployed, and managed. It’s no longer ok to sit back and assume that legacy vendors will soon change the model that has been working for them for over 30 years.
If you’ve seen any of my recent blogs or LinkedIn posts, you know I’m excited about what we’re doing at Red8 with Nile. And for good reason. Their vision resonates deeply with me as I’ve spent years working alongside teams who’ve thrown numerous days and nights into wrestling with networks, only to do it again when the next problem pops up…
The process is so accepted that the front lines and their managers have given up and consider this just another part of their job and how they keep the lights on. I understand that traditional networking can be complex and reactive, but find it interesting that vendors have continued to deliver enterprise networks based on outdated models that haven’t evolved nearly as fast as the rest of IT.
That’s why Nile’s approach feels so visionary. And frankly, so necessary.
The Cloud Changed Everything… Except Networking
Think back to when AWS first showed up. At the time, most organizations were VERY skeptical about putting critical data and workloads in someone else’s data center. But once they saw the agility, simplicity, and cost advantages of the cloud, the momentum became unstoppable.
Organizations no longer needed to be in the business of building and operating data centers.
Today, a modern startup would never consider building its own data center. Instead, they spin up resources in the cloud and focus on their actual business and outcomes, avoiding CapEx and operational complexity. Their focus is on building apps, delivering services, and creating innovative solutions for customers, not on maintaining the status quo.
This same shift has transformed nearly every area of IT:
- SaaS replaced on-prem applications
- Cloud computing replaced racks of servers
- Cloud storage replaced arrays and tape
- Cloud-delivered security replaced appliances
- Hosted VoIP replaced PBXs
- Even physical security has moved to smart cameras, cloud storage, and AI
So why is networking, specifically wired and wireless access, still stuck in the past? Let’s Talk About the Elephant in the Room.
I’ll be blunt, which might rub some people the wrong way, but it needs to be said: Complexity benefits legacy networking vendors.
Think about it. Added complexity requires experts, training, updates, patches, custom integration projects, and long-term support contracts. All of it feeds into their entire ecosystem: hardware upgrades, software revisions, certifications, sales compensation plans… you name it. It’s a well-oiled machine that’s hard to walk away from.
Over time, the industry added layer upon layer of new protocols, features, and tools to help simplify things. Unfortunately, we’ve ended up with massively over-engineered environments full of knobs and levers that rarely get used, but still need to be understood and accounted for, just in case. It’s actually job security for some.
- It’s unsustainable
- It’s inefficient
- It’s outdated
I know this reality all too well! We’ve been the ones building and supporting it. And I’m telling you: it doesn’t have to be this way.
Nile: It’s the Answer to Legacy Networking
What Nile brings to the market represents a groundbreaking shift. Many of the same principles used to transition from legacy data center thinking to a cloud model are being applied to the networking world. They’re not just simplifying how to operate a network; they’re rethinking the purchase, operation, and user experience by starting from a clean slate. In fact, Gartner just recognized Nile as a visionary in the 2025 Magic Quadrant for Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure.
Other networking vendors continue to pile onto decades-old architectures…bolting on security, layering dashboards over outdated command-line interfaces, and stacking third-party tools on top. They call it a solution, but underneath, it’s still the same legacy foundation, weighed down by its own complexity.
The Nile Access Service, on the other hand, is cloud-native by design and not retrofitted to satisfy the trend of the day. Their architecture is modern, scalable, resilient, and designed to automate what used to take entire teams days or weeks to accomplish. Network admins are still responsible for the network, but they’re not spending as much time on adjustments, troubleshooting, and chasing down possible “actions” to manually perform based on outdated AI principles.
A good analogy to use comes from the automotive world. Think about what Tesla did for autonomous vehicles. They didn’t take a Prius and bolt on cameras and a redesigned turbo; they started over. They created a platform with the compute power, sensors, and software to support full autonomy. You couldn’t retrofit that into a Model T. Or a Corolla.
That’s what Nile has done for networking: eliminated unnecessary moving parts, centralized intelligence in the cloud, and built a platform that gets smarter and more reliable over time.
How Nile Works
At a high level, every Nile customer deployment is built for high performance. The network is delivered as a service: switches, APs, and sensors are deployed on-site, while the intelligence, the brain of the operation, resides in the cloud. And if the connection to the cloud is ever interrupted, the network keeps running because uptime is not optional. Additional highlights include:
- Single-code architecture built on microservices. Simplifies updates, compatibility, scale, resilience, and the ability to resolve issues quickly.
- Nile owns and operates the full underlay. Hardware, software, lifecycle…it’s all included. Nile has even accounted for sustainability concerns.
- Guaranteed SLAs with financial backing. Coverage, capacity, and availability are assured providing IT teams and users a better overall experience
- Digital twin in the cloud. A real-time, live model of your network used for validation, testing, and proactive monitoring.
- Automated software update scheduling through a self-service portal. No more 2 a.m. update windows. No rollbacks. Just click and schedule.
This is a true paradigm shift in how networking is designed, consumed, operated, and secured.
Just like AWS redefined the data center, Nile is redefining the network:
- No more hardware ownership responsibilities
- No more bolted-on security
- No more lifecycle headaches
- No more firefighting
- No more oversized expenses that push everything else to the back burner
Operating a world-class network becomes predictable, cloud-delivered, and outcome-based…just like the majority of applications you’re now accustomed to.
The Takeaway
If you’re planning your next network refresh or just tired of constantly putting out fires, it may come down to a question you’ve asked before: Do we still need to own and operate this ourselves?
For many, the answer is once again “no.”
That’s what Nile enables. And for those of us who’ve spent our careers deep in the weeds trying to justify why we’re married to a legacy infrastructure full of surprises, it’s a breath of fresh air.
One Last Thing
Nile is not a traditional managed service. Think of it more like AWS: a shared responsibility model. Some call it co-managed. Nile handles the underlay…hardware, software, SLAs, and lifecycle while customers manage their own “instance” of the service to meet their specific needs.
That’s a model that makes sense for today and for what’s coming next.
Additional suggested reading:
- Nile Access Service (Enterprise-class wired and wireless networking)
- Nile Trust Service (Built-in wired and wireless zero-trust security)
- Nile Guest Service (VLAN-free PoP Guest add-on)
