NaaS startup Nile securely segments guest Wi-Fi

Network-as-a-service (NaaS) startup Nile has launched "Guest Service," a secure network traffic service that segments enterprises' guest traffic from the internal network.

Nile's Guest Service separates visitors' Internet traffic at enterprises' on-premise locations by tunneling guest traffic to one of Nile's local points of presence (PoPs). From one of Nile's three global PoPs, traffic is forwarded directly to the Internet.

Özer Dondurmacioglu, VP of services marketing for Nile, said the startup focuses more on enterprise networking on the LAN side versus the WAN. Dondurmacioglu explained Nile's goal is to provide a subscription-based, more cloud-like approach to managing the LAN in a way that's individualized for each of the enterprise's sites and buildings.

"Nile has its own hardware components – everything from accessories to switching to Aps (access points), sensors that test the network, etc. It's all Nile-designed and delivered hardware," said Dondurmacioglu.

The Layer 3 NaaS provider explained Guest Service supports IT teams in protecting enterprise data and reducing the security threat potential from guest devices. Guest Service has a one-click setup and works in lieu of IT teams having to update their LAN configuration, provision VLAN/IP subnet, deploy firewall zone updates for traffic and device isolation, and manage an anchor controller and DHCP server in their DMZ (demilitarized zone), said Nile.

Related:Nile, Extreme attack Cisco's enterprise networking biz

Visitor traffic is also logged as originating from a Nile IP address instead of the customer's IP address so Nile can respond to questions from authorities that could arise from improper use of guest access.

Dondurmacioglu explained that Nile manages software updates by updating microservices and preemptively reaches out to customers to address any product issues instead of waiting for a trouble ticket. Nile monitors its customers' software by utilizing physical sensors and virtual bots to run tests behind the scenes and collect user, device and application state performance over time.

"Whenever something goes wrong in the service, our engineering team actually gets notified first… so instead of customers calling us, we actually call the customer," Dondurmacioglu said.

Embracing an opex model

Equity management software company Carta became a Nile customer in March of this year. Simon Ng, senior IT manager for Carta, said his team previously received complaints that its guest network was slow and that it was difficult for visitors without admin rights to utilize the guest network.

Related:Nile gets another $175M

Ng explained that Carta selected Nile's Guest Service approach because Carta no longer wants to dedicate the time and money required for the "traditional model" of managing guest Wi-Fi traffic.

"We had a lot of pain points and different vendors, [time spent] on the procurement side of equipment, to managing the network stack," said Ng.

Once vendors had handed over the reins, managing guest Wi-Fi remained challenging for Carta's IT team, he explained. The decision to try out Nile's Guest Service was part of "a bigger conversation of moving Carta from a capex model to an opex model 100%."

Ng said the benefits of using Nile's Guest Service product is the ability to isolate guest traffic from the internal network, decrease the possibility of a data breach and have the "zero trust isolation piece." Guest Service has been deployed at Carta's office in Sandy, Utah, and the company plans to deploy it at its New York city location by December.

Nile currently provides zero trust security features and integrates with Palo Alto's firewall and SD-WAN security services. Dondurmacioglu said Nile plans to integrate with additional SSE vendors and will add DNS security in the future.

In August, Nile raised $175 million in a Series C funding round, bringing the total to $300 million. The startup was founded by former Cisco executives John Chambers (formerly CEO of Cisco) and Pankaj Patel in 2018, and is in competition with networking vendors such as Cisco, HPE/Aruba and Juniper Mist.