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Graphiant: Revolutionizing Enterprise Connectivity with Network Edge

Graphiant provides a private Network Edge service that delivers MPLS-level performance and security with the agility of the public cloud for global enterprises.

AI Workflow Automation
Contact Center (CCaaS)
Endpoint & Threat Detection
Enterprise Networking
Network as a Service
Network & Perimeter Security
Private WAN & Transport

Overview

Graphiant is a high-growth networking technology company that provides a next-generation "Network Edge" service. Founded by the team behind Viptela (acquired by Cisco), the company was established to address the inherent limitations of both legacy MPLS and modern SD-WAN. Graphiant’s primary mission is to simplify the way enterprises connect their distributed resources—including branch offices, data centers, and multi-cloud environments—by providing a private, high-performance network fabric delivered as a service.

The company serves large-scale enterprises across various sectors, including financial services, healthcare, and retail, where security, performance, and operational simplicity are paramount. Graphiant’s solution sits at the intersection of networking and cloud, offering a middle-mile connectivity platform that bypasses the complexities of the public internet while avoiding the high costs and long lead times associated with traditional carrier-grade MPLS.

Since its emergence from stealth, Graphiant has focused on solving the "connectivity crisis" caused by the explosion of data and the shift to hybrid work. Their market presence is characterized by a "disruptor" status, challenging established incumbents by offering a more agile, software-defined approach to global area networking. By providing a consumption-based model for enterprise-grade connectivity, Graphiant allows organizations to scale their network infrastructure in alignment with their business needs, rather than being constrained by physical hardware or rigid service contracts.

Positioning

Graphiant positions itself as the evolution of enterprise networking, sitting strategically between the categories of SD-WAN and traditional MPLS. Their messaging focuses on the concept of the "Graphiant Network Edge," which they pitch as a superior alternative to the "complex web of tunnels" that defines current SD-WAN deployments. They target IT leaders who are frustrated by the performance unpredictability of the public internet and the operational rigidity of legacy carriers.

Their competitive positioning strategy is built on three pillars:

  1. Performance without Complexity: Positioning their "tunnelless" architecture as a breakthrough that provides the speed of MPLS with the ease of cloud deployment.
  2. Agility as a Service: Differentiating from carriers by highlighting their rapid provisioning capabilities and consumption-based pricing.
  3. Security by Design: Messaging focuses on the inherent security of a private fabric, positioning Graphiant as a more secure alternative to internet-based VPNs for sensitive corporate data.

In the market, Graphiant differentiates by moving the conversation away from "hardware boxes" and toward "business outcomes." While competitors focus on the features of their edge appliances, Graphiant emphasizes the power of their global fabric and the simplicity of their centralized management. This positions them as a premium, modern choice for enterprises undergoing digital transformation and cloud migration.

Differentiation

The Graphiant Network Edge is distinguished by its unique "Stateless Core" architecture. While traditional SD-WAN solutions rely on complex, encrypted tunnels (IPsec) that create significant overhead and management challenges at scale, Graphiant utilizes a private, programmable fabric. This allows for the delivery of high-performance connectivity without the "tunnel tax," ensuring that latency remains low and throughput remains high regardless of the number of endpoints.

Key product differentiators include:

  • Tunnelless Connectivity: By removing the need for peer-to-peer tunnels, Graphiant eliminates the complexity of managing thousands of encrypted paths, making the network far more scalable and easier to troubleshoot.
  • MPLS-Grade Privacy: Unlike SD-WAN, which often routes over the unpredictable public internet, Graphiant provides a private middle-mile fabric that ensures deterministic performance and enterprise-grade security.
  • Programmatic Policy Control: Security and routing policies are managed through a centralized portal and applied at the edge, allowing for instantaneous, global updates without manual configuration of individual nodes.
  • Cloud-Native Integration: The platform is built to seamlessly connect on-premises data centers, branch offices, and multi-cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP) through a single, unified interface. This technical advantage allows enterprises to treat their global network as a single, programmable entity rather than a fragmented collection of circuits.

Ideal Customer Profile

The ideal Graphiant customer is a mid-to-large enterprise with a distributed footprint and a "Cloud-First" or "Multi-Cloud" strategy. Key characteristics include:

  • Company Size: 500+ employees with multiple geographic locations (regional or global).
  • Industry: Particularly well-suited for Healthcare, Finance, Retail, and Manufacturing where data security and network performance are non-negotiable.
  • Technical Maturity: Organizations that have moved beyond basic firewall-to-firewall VPNs and are looking for automated, policy-driven networking.
  • Budget: Companies spending significantly on MPLS, dedicated cloud interconnects (Direct Connect/ExpressRoute), or struggling with the "hidden costs" of managing complex SD-WAN overlays.
  • Team Composition: IT teams with dedicated Network Architects or Cloud Engineers who value operational simplicity and "As-a-Service" delivery.

Best Fit

Graphiant is the premier choice for organizations in the following scenarios:

  • MPLS Replacement: Companies looking to move away from the high costs and long lead times of traditional MPLS while maintaining private-network performance and security.
  • Complex Multi-Cloud Networking: Organizations struggling with the complexity of connecting disparate VPCs/VNETs across AWS, Azure, and GCP who need a unified, high-performance transit layer.
  • Global Edge Connectivity: Businesses with a highly distributed footprint (IoT, remote clinics, retail branches) that require low-latency, "any-to-any" connectivity without the overhead of managing thousands of individual VPN tunnels.
  • Rapid M&A Integration: Firms that need to quickly interconnect the networks of acquired companies without dealing with overlapping IP addresses or complex BGP peering at every site.

Offerings

Graphiant’s offerings are centered around its Network-as-a-Service delivery:

  • Graphiant Stateless Core: The global, high-speed private fabric that handles data transit without the need for traditional tunnels.
  • Graphiant Edge (Hardware): A range of physical appliances designed for branch offices, large campuses, and data centers, varying by throughput capacity (Small to Extra-Large).
  • Graphiant Edge (Virtual): Software-based instances designed for deployment in private clouds (ESXi/KVM) or public cloud marketplaces (AWS, Azure, GCP).
  • Graphiant Portal: The "single pane of glass" management interface used for orchestration, policy definition, and real-time visibility.
  • Graphiant G-Cloud: Specialized connectivity solutions for connecting to major SaaS providers and cloud ecosystems with optimized paths.

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Buying Guide: Graphiant

Everything you need to evaluate Graphiant— from features and pricing to implementation and security.

Introduction

Welcome to the Buyer’s Guide for Graphiant, a pioneer in the "Network-as-a-Service" (NaaS) space. As enterprises move away from the rigidity of MPLS and the unpredictability of the public internet for business-critical traffic, a new category has emerged: the Stateless Core. This guide is designed to help IT leaders, network architects, and cloud engineers evaluate how Graphiant’s unique architecture simplifies global connectivity.

In the following sections, we will explore how Graphiant removes the "tunnel tax" associated with traditional SD-WAN and provides a private, high-performance middle-mile fabric. You will learn about the ideal use cases, technical prerequisites, and the business value of shifting from a builder-managed network to a consumed-service model. By the end of this guide, you will have a clear framework to determine if Graphiant is the right fit to modernize your enterprise WAN and cloud networking strategy.

Key Features

Graphiant’s platform is built on several core pillars that differentiate it from traditional SD-WAN and MPLS:

  • The Stateless Core: Unlike SD-WAN, which relies on complex, encrypted tunnels (IPsec) that degrade performance, Graphiant uses a stateless global fabric. This ensures high throughput and low latency without the overhead of tunnel management.
  • Any-to-Any Connectivity: Provides seamless, private connectivity between branches, data centers, and multiple cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) without needing to hair-pin traffic through a central hub.
  • Programmatic Policy Engine: Centralized control plane that allows for the definition of security, routing, and performance policies that are globally enforced across the fabric instantly.
  • Edge Simplicity: Graphiant Edge (available as hardware or software) requires minimal configuration. It simply connects the local environment to the nearest Graphiant Point of Presence (PoP).
  • Privacy and Security: Traffic is partitioned and isolated within the core, providing MPLS-like privacy but with modern encryption standards and cloud-like agility.
  • Real-time Analytics: Deep visibility into traffic patterns, latency, and packet loss across the entire global fabric, enabling proactive troubleshooting.

Use Cases

  • Global Multi-Cloud Transit: A financial services firm uses Graphiant to interconnect its high-frequency trading apps in AWS with data lakes in Azure, achieving lower latency and higher security than the public internet.
  • MPLS Offload/Replacement: A manufacturing company replaces its aging, expensive MPLS network with Graphiant, reducing monthly recurring costs by 40% while gaining the ability to spin up new sites in days instead of months.
  • Distributed Healthcare: A hospital system uses Graphiant to securely connect hundreds of remote clinics and imaging centers to the central EMR system, ensuring HIPAA-compliant data transit without the complexity of managing thousands of VPN tunnels.
  • IoT & Edge Computing: An energy company uses Graphiant to backhaul data from thousands of remote sensors and edge gateways to a centralized analytics engine with guaranteed QoS.

Pricing Models

Graphiant typically operates on a consumption-based or subscription-oriented model designed to be more predictable than traditional telco billing:

  • Subscription Tiers: Often based on the number of "Edges" (physical or virtual) connected to the fabric.
  • Bandwidth-Based Pricing: Costs are scaled based on the throughput requirements (e.g., 100Mbps, 1Gbps, 10Gbps) at each edge location.
  • Contract Terms: Typically offered in 1, 3, or 5-year commitments, with discounts for longer-term engagements.
  • No Hidden "Egress" Fees: Unlike some cloud-native networking solutions, Graphiant aims for transparent pricing for data transit through its core.
  • Additional Costs: Consider one-time hardware purchase costs for physical Edge devices and any professional services required for complex migrations.

Technical Requirements

To deploy Graphiant, the following technical components are required:

  • Edge Connectivity: A standard internet connection (broadband, fiber, DIA, or LTE/5G) to reach the Graphiant PoP.
  • Graphiant Edge (Physical): For on-premises sites, a Graphiant-provided hardware appliance (various models based on throughput).
  • Graphiant Edge (Virtual): For cloud or virtualized environments, support for KVM, VMware ESXi, or native cloud instances in AWS/Azure/GCP.
  • Network Infrastructure: Standard RJ45 or SFP/SFP+ interfaces for LAN/WAN handoffs.
  • Browser Access: A modern web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge) to access the Graphiant Portal for management and monitoring.

Business Requirements

To successfully adopt Graphiant, organizations should ensure the following are in place:

  • Network Architecture Readiness: A clear understanding of current traffic patterns, latency requirements, and application dependencies across the WAN and Cloud.
  • Stakeholder Alignment: Buy-in from both the Network Infrastructure team and the Cloud/DevOps teams, as Graphiant bridges the gap between traditional networking and cloud-native connectivity.
  • Policy Definition: A centralized strategy for security and routing policies. While Graphiant simplifies the execution, the business must define the rules of engagement for data transit.
  • Skill Sets: While Graphiant reduces the need for deep CLI expertise in traditional routing protocols (like complex BGP or IPsec tunnel management), the team should be comfortable with software-defined networking (SDN) concepts and portal-based management.

Implementation Timeline

A typical Graphiant deployment follows a phased approach:

  • Phase 1: Discovery & Design (2-3 weeks): Identifying edge locations, cloud regions, and performance requirements. Mapping out the logical topology.
  • Phase 2: Edge Portal Setup & Policy Config (1 week): Configuring the Graphiant Portal, defining security zones, and setting up initial routing policies.
  • Phase 3: Edge Hardware/Software Deployment (2-4 weeks): Shipping and installing Graphiant Edge devices at physical sites or deploying virtual instances in cloud VPCs. This is often "Plug-and-Play."
  • Phase 4: Migration & Validation (2-6 weeks): Gradually shifting traffic from legacy circuits (MPLS/VPN) to the Graphiant Stateless Core.
  • Phase 5: Go-Live & Optimization (Ongoing): Final cutover and fine-tuning of performance policies based on real-world traffic data.

Support Options

Graphiant provides enterprise-grade support to ensure high availability for mission-critical traffic:

  • 24/7 Global Support: Access to technical support engineers for troubleshooting and incident resolution.
  • Customer Success Program: Dedicated account managers for enterprise clients to assist with strategic planning and network optimization.
  • Online Knowledge Base: Comprehensive documentation, configuration guides, and best practice architectures.
  • Hardware Replacement: Next-business-day (NBD) or advanced hardware replacement options for physical Edge appliances.
  • Professional Services: Expert consulting available for large-scale migrations, architectural design, and custom integrations.

Integration Requirements

Graphiant is designed to integrate seamlessly into modern IT ecosystems:

  • Cloud Providers: Native integration with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform via virtual edge instances.
  • Identity & Access: Integration with enterprise identity providers (SAML/SSO) for portal access and management.
  • Monitoring & Observability: Support for exporting flow data and telemetry to third-party tools (SNMP, Syslog, NetFlow) and integration with common SIEM/SOAR platforms for security monitoring.
  • API Access: A robust RESTful API is available for "Infrastructure as Code" (IaC) workflows, allowing teams to automate the provisioning of edges and policies via tools like Terraform.
  • Legacy Interop: Ability to peer with existing BGP environments to ensure a smooth transition from legacy WAN architectures.

Security & Compliance

Graphiant treats security as a fundamental component of the network fabric:

  • Encryption at Rest and in Transit: All control plane communication is encrypted, and data plane traffic is isolated and secured as it traverses the stateless core.
  • Network Segmentation: Support for multi-tenancy and macro-segmentation ensures that different business units or traffic types (e.g., Guest Wi-Fi vs. Payment Processing) remain completely isolated.
  • Compliance Standards: Graphiant targets standard enterprise certifications including SOC2 Type II.
  • Zero Trust Principles: The architecture supports the implementation of Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) by ensuring only authenticated edges can join the fabric and communicate based on strict policy.
  • Data Sovereignty: Policies can be configured to control traffic paths, helping organizations meet regional data residency requirements.

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