Kyndryl, Cloudflare Partner for Managed Network Modernization

Cloudflare and Kyndryl are teaming up to provide managed network modernization services. They’ll help enterprises modernize and scale their corporate networks with managed WAN as a service and Cloudflare Zero Trust.

The partnership couples Kyndryl’s managed end-to-end networking services with Cloudflare’s technology platform to enable enterprises to streamline connectivity to multiple clouds at scale.

Kyndryl’s expertise in network services and protecting business-critical infrastructure, coupled with Cloudflare’s global cloud platform, presents a partnership that enables enterprises to leverage a fully managed internet security, performance and reliability solution. The partnership allows enterprises to scale network capacity based on business needs, while reducing costs and presenting cost predictability.

Network Modernization Critical

Matt Harrell, Cloudflare’s global head of channels and alliances, said the need to modernize corporate networks is only growing as organizations continue to shift apps with the increase of SaaS-based tools, and move store and compute resources into the cloud.

Cloudflare’s Matt Harrell

“Cloudflare and Kyndryl’s partnership is unique in helping customers and partners realize that there are end-to-end solutions available now in the marketplace that can replace traditional on-premises hardware, and corporate SD-WAN and MPLS architectures,” he said. “Going through this transformation that can be complex. But we’re making it seamless with this managed partnership.”

Cloudflare has partnered with IBM since early 2018, Harrell said. Cloudflare supports IBM Cloud, which specifically uses Cloudflare as its core internet service.

In late 2021, Kyndryl spun off from IBM, formerly known as GTS, and for the better part of 2022, Cloudflare has been building out its offerings with Kyndryl.

“Cloudflare and Kyndryl’s partnership will continue to expand in order to deliver and guide enterprises through their network modernization journey today and tomorrow,” Harrell said.

“As organizations grapple with increasing network workload demands, the joint WAN-as-a-Service offering will enable enterprises to build a robust cloud network, and focus on being agile and innovative,” said Josh Helm, Kyndryl’s vice president of global network and edge offering enablement. “The expansive IT advisory services Kyndryl provides, combining cloud networking with network security, simply helps organizations to overcome technological barriers for a seamless digital transformation.”

Kyndryl’s New Managed SASE with Fortinet

Also Monday, Kyndryl unveiled a managed Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution powered by Fortinet. It  aims to help customers enable advanced network security initiatives. The solution combines Fortinet’s cloud-delivered security and secure networking solutions with Kyndryl’s network and security services to design, build, manage and modernize mission-critical networking for customers across industries.

SASE converges networking and security capabilities into a unified cloud-delivered service. SASE offers secure web gateway (SWG), zero trust network access (ZTNA), cloud access security broker (CASB), firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS) and SD-WAN to deliver consistent security and enhanced user experience for users everywhere.

“We are excited to offer this managed SASE solution with Fortinet to help customers transform their network and security architecture to reduce cyber risk, costs and complexity,” said Paul Savill, Kyndryl’s global network and edge computing practice leader. “The integration of SASE capabilities converges zero trust security capabilities into enterprise architectures, which is becoming paramount to achieving a trusted network security posture.”