There are only two options for managing a global multi-cloud network: either by using a combination of inference, hope, and intuition or with mathematical certainty. When conducting 5 million financial transactions daily, it’s essential to operate with certainty, regardless of your network’s size or geographical distribution. Auditors don’t accept inferences; they demand certainty when determining compliance, and a poor audit can be disastrous for the business.

Trying to convince SecOps teams they need more data is like trying to convince a drowning person they need more water. SecOps teams are so overwhelmed they can’t even respond to 67% of the alerts they receive. On average, SecOps teams receive 4,484 alerts per day and spend over three hours per day manually triaging the alerts, costing $3.3 billion annually in the US alone.

According to Forbes, 90% of startups fail. According to the Harvard Business Review, the number is closer to 70%, but whichever number you choose to believe, the odds are still staggeringly stacked against young new ventures. At Forward Networks, we just had a terrific time two weeks ago celebrating the company’s 10th anniversary. Ten years is impressive by any measure, but especially so in the cutthroat universe of Silicon Valley tech startups.

It’s hard to imagine that there are upwards of 100 billion devices connected to each other today. Many of these devices are terrestrial; however, more and more devices are being brought online across the sky, sea, and space. As complexity grows, we need to ensure we have the right level of automation in place to keep everything running smoothly. One of my first goals at Forward Networks was to echo what we are already doing publicly – building a secure product in a secure environment.

Most of the big networking headaches didn’t turn up overnight; they started small and increased in complexity over time, as the network grew and evolved. Without detailed actionable data, these problems can be nearly impossible to solve; at the very least it can take weeks, months, or even years to rid a global network of a pervasive issue.

Security teams rely on vulnerability scanners to proactively locate vulnerabilities in network devices, hosts, and applications. These tools help improve the overall security posture of the network by remediating exposure before bad actors have an opportunity to exploit it. Although incredibly helpful, the data delivered by these tools is often overwhelming and not presented in an actionable manner.