Cloud-Native Network Infrastructure-as-a-Service With Integrated Security

Founded in 2018 by Amir Khan and Atif Khan, the pair behind SD-WAN pioneer Viptela, Alkira builds network infrastructure as a service for enterprises whose applications, users and data are spread across multiple clouds, data centers, branch sites and partner networks. The San Jose company set out to make the network behave like the cloud itself: consumed as a service, deployed in minutes and governed from one place. It now operates as part of Lumen Technologies, pairing its cloud-native control plane with Lumen's global fiber network.

The platform is built on Cloud Exchange Points, virtual hubs stood up inside hyperscaler regions worldwide and stitched together into a private global backbone. Connectors attach branch sites, data centers, cloud environments and remote users, while segments enforce logical isolation across the whole fabric. Remote workers are steered to the nearest exchange point by geo-DNS, authenticate against Active Directory or LDAP, and are mapped from directory groups into segments governed by policy defined in the portal. Third-party firewalls run inside the exchange points with high availability, auto-scaling and symmetric routing.

What separates the approach from a stack of point products is that routing, segmentation and inspection are provisioned together from a single console, with security services drawn from Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Check Point, Cisco and F5 rather than a proprietary engine. Consumption-based pricing removes hardware capital expense, and one referenced customer cut its cloud routing and firewall footprint by more than 60 percent. Current positioning emphasizes AI workloads, and the company placed 74th on Deloitte's 2025 Technology Fast 500.