For years, India’s terrestrial networks were a challenge, with frequent outages causing global enterprises to avoid routing through the country. Lightstorm, a leading cloud and data centre connectivity solution provider, set out to change this narrative by tackling the problem from the ground up.
Traditional telecom models are slow, often requiring months to procure and deploy network services. Lightstorm flipped this with its network-as-a-service (NaaS) model, allowing customers to access an on-demand, ready-to-use network.
“The current customer experience for NaaS in India is quite different. While there are competitors offering networking or connectivity solutions to enterprises, these services are still delivered through a traditional sales model,” Prasanna C, head of product, at Lightstorm, noted.
They redesigned India’s long-distance network, moving 95% of it to robust, utility-grade infrastructure like gas pipelines and high-power transmission networks. This shift dramatically reduced outages due to common issues like cable cuts.
In India, it is currently operational in several cities, such as Pune, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Mundra, Nashik, Nagpur, Hyderabad, and Chennai, and will be expanded to Lucknow, Kolkata and Vijayawada shortly.
Lightstorm’s NaaS platform, Polarin, guarantees enterprises the agile and scalable networking interconnection capabilities they need to thrive in hybrid and multi-cloud environments, as well as in Data Center Interconnect (DCI) and Internet Exchange scenarios.
Why Shift to NaaS?
Their Polarin product line lets enterprises connect to data centres and cloud platforms as easily as turning on a utility service that is seamless, scalable, and efficient.
Enterprises are undergoing massive digital transformations. And while the cloud offers scalability and flexibility, traditional networks haven’t kept pace.
Imagine a bank or an e-commerce platform that can scale its operations in the cloud but still faces delays in network deployment, often waiting months to get connected. That doesn’t cut it in today’s fast-paced world.
The rigidity of conventional networks is becoming a major issue. While cloud platforms like AWS and Google allow for dynamic, auto-scaling infrastructure, the network has remained static until now.
NaaS is the missing piece, enabling businesses to align their entire IT infrastructure, including the network, with cloud principles. “Lightstorm is leading this transformation, and competitors are starting to follow their lead, particularly in emerging markets like India,” said Prasanna.
For example, a private sector bank in India needed a fast, reliable, and flexible network solution to support its migration to new data centres, without the delays of traditional methods. So, they partnered with Polarin’s NaaS platform, which promised agility, transparency, and stability at a competitive price.
Polarin addressed their network interconnection challenges and unlocked a new way of accessing connectivity. It provided the bank with on-demand access to a secure private network, offering high bandwidth (up to 100 Gbps) for their DC-DC and DC-Cloud connectivity requirements.
With fully protected diverse paths on an OPGW/utility grade network, the bank could enhance reliability and uptime, ensuring uninterrupted operations.
They overhauled the network’s architecture, opting for point-to-point links over traditional ring-based designs. This simple change significantly boosted performance and reduced latency, critical for today’s data-heavy internet traffic.
Connecting from Here to Anywhere
Lightstorm’s business operations extend from the Middle East to the West Coast of the US, covering various markets in Asia, excluding Hong Kong and the Philippines. They are expanding, with smaller pockets of operations at different stages in countries like Indonesia and Thailand.
According to Prasanna, they are not just solving connectivity challenges within India but are also offering a global connectivity solution through the NaaS platform, which can link any data centre in India to locations worldwide.
Their Naas platforms are integrated, allowing seamless communication from an automation and API standpoint. So, even though they don’t have direct network access in regions like Japan or South Korea, customers can still establish a connection – for instance, from a Mumbai data centre to one in Japan, Australia, or the US, almost instantly.
The connection is live within minutes, showcasing the power of NaaS and automation, enabling businesses to go global quickly.
Infrastructure Challenges
In developed markets like Singapore or Europe, the network infrastructure is largely stable. Laying fibre and ensuring network diversity is straightforward, with fewer disruptions. The main focus there is enhancing customer experience, as the foundational network is already solid.
In India, however, the challenge runs deeper. Building a NaaS model requires not only smart software and automation but also a rock-solid foundational infrastructure, meaning a stable fibre network. That’s where Lightstorm had to innovate.
“While developed countries worry about network optimisation, in India, creating a reliable core network was the hardest part”, Prasanna said. Globally, the market size was valued at USD 11.56 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach USD 104.66 billion by 2031, according to Data Bridge Market Research.
A few global players like Perimeter 81, Cloudflare, Palo Alto Networks, and Megaport are offering a variety of networking services to businesses across the world to improve the security, reliability, and performance of their critical internet properties.
Even India is emerging as a key player in the market. According to data from TechSci Research, India NaaS market was valued at $1.2 billion in 2023 and it is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.78% through 2029.
As enterprises seek to harness AI and develop scalable AI applications, having a robust network infrastructure will become crucial.
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