Network World’s Best of Enterprise Network 2024 award winners

Alkira’s innovative approach to on-demand networking infrastructure, combined with its agentless operation, user-friendliness, robust security measures, and comprehensive partner ecosystem, makes it a standout solution in the industry. Its ability to streamline processes, enhance efficiency, and adapt to customer demands positions Alkira as a leader in networking.

Finalist: Nile Access Service

Nile’s visionary new architecture combines cloud-native software delivery, AI and automation, zero-trust networking security, and custom-built wired, wireless, and sensor network infrastructure in an as-a-service offering. The Nile Access Service learns and adapts to the individual customer’s needs. It automates most network management tasks, saving IT hundreds of hours monthly and virtually eliminating trouble tickets.

Nile automatically performs software upgrades and capacity planning, while eliminating the need for hardware refreshes. Its modern approach to campus and branch network access results in the lowest TCO in the industry. Nile Access Service consists of Nile Service Blocks, Nile Services Cloud, and Nile AI Apps. Nile Service blocks include Wi-Fi access points, access switches, distribution switches, and Wi-Fi sensors. Nile Service Blocks integrate 10+ products and is delivered as a service while AI-powered hardware is purpose-built, with deep instrumentation across all layers using a deterministic system design.

Cloud/Edge Solutions

Winner: Prosimo’s AI Suite for Multi-Cloud Networking

Prosimo’s AI Suite for Multi-Cloud Networking (MCN) is a cloud-native platform that streamlines AI adoption for enterprises. Prosimo’s Networking for AI simplifies connectivity, security, and infrastructure building blocks for AI workloads. This includes high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, multicloud connectivity, and built-in compliance and guardrails around LLM data sets.

The AI Suite enables organizations to utilize cloud-native connectivity, helping teams deploy and manage workloads faster. Prosimo’s platform takes a full life-cycle approach that includes Nebula, a conversational AI assistant enabling AIOps. Nebula uses natural language to provide recommendations, accelerate root cause analysis, and allow users to ask questions about the data flowing through Prosimo’s network.

Prosimo facilitates multicloud networking by collecting data on traffic flows, costs, alerts, policies, and other metrics from various cloud service providers, in turn enabling users to gain insights, troubleshoot issues, and track resource usage. The AI Suite for Multi-Cloud Networking offers enterprises a 30-50% increase in network performance, 4-8 times faster provisioning, and an 80% or greater reduction in mean time to identify (MTTI) incidents and mean time to resolve (MTTR). The AI Suite is the only solution on the market that combines AI and AIOps capabilities, delivering these benefits quickly and enhancing time to value for its customers.

From the judge

Prosimo’s AI Suite for Multi-Cloud Networking gives organizations everything they need for AI readiness in one vertically integrated platform. Prosimo’s full-stack, cloudnative platform enables enterprises to take advantage of cloud-native connectivity designed for AI. Plus, the Nebula AI assistant is a cutting-edge generative AI chat interface that enables AIOps for multicloud networking.

Finalist: ZEDEDA

ZEDEDA offers a simple and scalable cloud-based orchestration solution that delivers visibility, control, and security for distributed edge computing. The ZEDEDA platform gives customers the freedom to deploy and manage any app on any hardware at hyperscale, while connecting to any cloud or on-premises system. It is designed to meet the security, safety, uptime, and usability needs of both OT and IT organizations, enabling them to focus on driving business outcomes. In addition, the ZEDEDA Marketplace provides customers with one-click deployment of both curated and custom applications.

ZEDEDA is optimized to address the unique requirements for deploying computing at the distributed edge—outside of secure data centers—both on-premises and in the field. The solution leverages the open source EVE-OS from the Linux Foundation’s LF Edge organization to provide an open, flexible, and secure foundation while abstracting the complexity of the diverse hardware, connectivity, and software at the distributed edge. This also eliminates vendor lock-in.

Best of the Rest

Winner: Accelsius NeuCool

As AI adoption grows, data centers are adding more GPUs to meet the growing demand for AI workloads. However, many data centers are unprepared to handle the heat surge released by AI processors, as traditional air cooling cannot efficiently cool the servers. Accelsius’ NeuCool two-phase, direct-to-chip cooling system addresses these challenges. With NeuCool, highly engineered vaporators (also known as cold plates) are mounted directly to targeted hot-spot chips. The solution then directs an ecofriendly, safe, dielectric refrigerant through the vaporators. The cooling process turns the liquid refrigerant into vapor, which then travels through an industrial manifold, condensing back into a liquid in a closed-loop system.

The NeuCool architecture is driven by the iPCU, a highly engineered cooling distribution unit, with enterprisegrade redundancies, industrial components, and extensive safety testing to maximize uptime. NeuCool’s modular design enables seamless integration into existing data center facilities via water-cooled doors, dry coolers, or other heat rejection methods.

From the judge

Data center operators need to be prepared to accommodate AI workloads, which run on heat-generating GPU chips, while keeping cooling and electricity costs under control. Accelsius’ NeuCool two-phase direct-to-chip liquid cooling technology enables energy savings of up to 50% compared to air cooling and requires zero water consumption.

Finalist: Extreme Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 Access NTS

Extreme’s portfolio of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 solutions enable customers to embrace 6 GHz, known as the next era of wireless connectivity. This spectrum creates a new superhighway for connectivity, allowing organizations of all sizes and industries to access dedicated connections for Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 devices. It provides faster data speeds, increased capacity, reduced interference, and improved latency.

The newest generation, Wi-Fi 7, adds features including 320 MHz channels and multi-link operation (MLO). This increases bandwidth with additional channels and allows simultaneous usage of multiple bands and channels to maintain the best possible connection—in turn enabling more efficient and reliable wireless connectivity. The Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 solutions from Extreme are backward-compatible to support all currently deployed connected devices. Once APs are set up, management is incredibly simple, and customers can take advantage of AIOps management.

About our judge: Neal Weinberg is a freelance writer based in Massachusetts. He is a former newspaper reporter and was Features Editor at Network World.