Why Peering Relationships are Key to Providing a Phenomenal User Experience

One of the many benefits of running your own private cloud infrastructure are the performance improvements when you’re in control of your own connectivity, shortening the path and reducing latency for both users connecting to your private cloud and first mile connectivity to applications and services. The alternative, and one used by those utilizing public cloud infrastructure to host their SASE services, is akin to taking a multi hop flight but not knowing or having any control of the various hub airports you may transit through. No one wants to fly from London to New York via Amsterdam, Dallas and Chicago! 

To give our customers that private jet experience, we continue to enhance our extensive peering relationships. The Netskope NewEdge network is now one of the most connected networks in the world and in line with some of the world’s largest public cloud providers, top internet destinations and content delivery networks (CDNs). 

Going back to that transport analogy, reducing the number of networks that traffic has to pass through is akin to flying the quickest and shortest route via a private jet, even if you have to stop briefly at an intermediate airport. In network speak, this translates to dramatic reduction in latency, thereby radically improving the user and application experience. Which option will be both quicker and less likely to face delays and cancellations? The multi hop convoluted hub routing, or the more direct private jet? 

Today NewEdge has more than 3,200 network adjacencies to over 650 unique ASNs, a year-over-year network adjacencies increase of over 60%—reducing the reliance on transit providers, increasing reliability, and giving a greater level of control. Think of the number of direct peers being akin to “more direct flights” to your destination, avoiding layovers or missed connections that slow down travel, or in the networking world add a ton of latency crippling the user experience.

Public internet exchanges are an important component in facilitating the growing number of network adjacencies, allowing NewEdge to reach both popular apps and content as well as the long tail of the internet, increasing both performance and resilience. Ultimately, connectivity to more internet exchange points (IXPs) translates into better coverage and more paths to achieve the best performance and availability. NewEdge is connected to most major IXPs around the world, facilitating optimized interconnectivity and now participates in more than 100 internet exchanges, and is recognized as one of the top 15 most connected networks.

We know that access to critical services offered by Google, Microsoft and leading public clouds are paramount and to that end, we are the only vendor to interconnect with Microsoft and Google in every region it is possible to do so. Figures from internal testing show the average latency from NewEdge data centers to these top destinations is single-digit millisecond. By utilizing the NewEdge network for all transit to these top providers, many customers have decommissioned private links and benefit from the cost saving in doing so. 

Finally, there are always occasions where your private jet is unable to land close to your final destination, and in these cases, a fast final transfer is needed to reach that remote log cabin in the forest. This is where transit providers provide an invaluable service, routing traffic to the long tail of ISP’s. But just as that “last-mile” transfer could be a bus that takes an hour, rather than a 20 minute limo ride, some transit providers are better than others and offer faster paths to the user. Being able to optimize transit providers and control which routes traffic takes, both from users to Netskope and Netskope to apps is the final piece of this jigsaw puzzle.

Everyone wants the experience of a private jet, but not all SASE platforms provide a network that replicates this experience. With Netskope you can get the experience that your people demand, without any of the trade-offs.

More information on the Netskope NewEdge network and private cloud can be found here.