Nile Infuses ‘Reimagined’ NaaS Platform With Zero Trust Capabilities

‘We are very, very uniquely positioned, predominantly because we are in the business of delivering a service. We are not selling boxes. We had a unique advantage to build this from scratch. When you do that, you’re able to do a lot of things that are impossible for the established [networking] companies to do,’ Nile CEO Pankaj Patel tells CRN.

Nile CEO Pankaj Patel

John Chambers-backed networking-as-a-service startup Nile has bolstered its core offering with three new zero trust security capabilities.

Nile offers what the upstart calls a “reimagined” wired and wireless service delivered entirely as a service. The security features now baked into its platform aim to protect against the threats that wired and wireless networks often fall victim to, the company said. The latest security features revealed on Wednesday include zero trust access, zero trust network and zero trust isolation.

The Network as a Service (NaaS) platform injected with zero trust security features is a “bulletproof” opportunity for channel partners who have had “piecemeal” custom networking and security solutions using several vendor products for their end customers, Nile’s CEO Pankaj Patel told CRN.

“I think this gives partners a pretty big leg up on how they can position Nile as not just a very high-performance service, but it’s also incredibly secure,” Patel said.

[Related: John Chambers-Backed NaaS Startup Nile Emerges From Stealth, Launches Channel Program: Exclusive]

Now included as part of Nile’s core NaaS platform is Zero Trust Access, which unifies access for all wired and wireless devices while employing identity-based authentication and authorization to the network. The feature ensures that every user, device, or IoT endpoint is authenticated and authorized before providing any access to a Nile network.

“We do not trust anything, and we authenticate everybody,” Patel said of the zero-trust access feature.

The next feature, Zero Trust Isolation, removes malware proliferation by isolating every user and device from every other user and device on a Nile network. From there, security policies can be centrally managed and enforced at an organization’s firewall. Campus traffic can also now be inspected for possible malicious activity, the company said.

Lastly is Zero Trust Network. The feature ensures that every element within the Nile network is authenticated through Mutual Trust Access Control (MTAC). Communication between all wired and wireless devices across the network is encrypted and integrated Wireless intrusion detection systems (WIDS) and wireless intrusion protection systems (WIPS) continuously monitors for unauthorized or malicious wireless activity, according to Nile.

“From the time the user traffic gets onto the access point, all the way through different layers of switching … it’s completely encrypted, so nobody is able to spoof the traffic,” Patel said. “All of this gives us a unique advantage in terms of what we can do to really provide a zero-trust network.”

Despite the latest zero trust additions, Nile’s focus on security began on day one, Patel said.

“We are very, very uniquely positioned, predominantly because we are in the business of delivering a service. We are not selling boxes. We had a unique advantage to build this from scratch. When you do that, you’re able to do a lot of things that are impossible for the established [networking] companies to do.”

Nile in September exited stealth mode with a full-fledged partner program in tow. The startup’s platform gives channel partners and their midmarket and enterprise clients network simplicity, security, performance, while lowering total cost of ownership for partners and end customers, according to Nile.

The company today has had interest from more than 300 channel partners across the globe but has limited itself to about 60 partners that it can give its full attention to, Patel said. Partner engagement for the channel-friendly provider, is very strong, he added.

“We are focused on insertion and expansion — land and expand,” Patel said. “We want to insert into a lot of strategic accounts, and we are confident that we will really thrill them with the experience and be able to really expand on that opportunity.”