The Last Great Cloud Transformation

Malicious bots threaten websites through attacks like credential stuffing and DDoS, yet blocking them without disrupting essential bots is a challenge. As AI-powered bots grow more sophisticated, legacy solutions often fail. In this episode hosts Alan Shimel and Mitch Ashley are joined by Anne Ahola Ward (CircleClick) and Michael Tremante (Cloudflare) to teach us how a cloud-based approach can stop bad bots while ensuring legitimate traffic flows smoothly.

APIs are driving innovation by enabling seamless integration of cloud services, generative AI, and new digital capabilities—but they’re also expanding the enterprise attack surface. From zero-day exploits to authentication abuse, API security is now a critical concern as breaches can lead to data exposure and fraud. In this episode of The Last Great Cloud Transformation, hosts Alan Shimel and Mitch Ashley are joined by Cloudflare expert Saikrishna Chavali to discuss the biggest threats to APIs, the limitations of traditional security measures, and how a unified cloud platform can help organizations protect their APIs without adding complexity. Tune in to learn how to secure your API strategy while continuing to innovate.

Digital-native businesses—those built for the digital age—enjoy a competitive edge, operating with greater agility, efficiency, and security than many traditional organizations. Their ability to seamlessly integrate digital operations and cloud-based security enables them to innovate rapidly while protecting against evolving cyber threats. But what holds other businesses back from embracing a digital-native approach? In this episode of The Last Great Cloud Transformation series, hosts Alan Shimel and Mitch Ashley are joined by David Liu (Cloudflare) and Lisa Martin (Futurum) to explore the benefits of digital-native strategies, the challenges organizations face in their journey to digital maturity, and key insights for optimizing cloud transformation.

Public sector organizations have made significant strides in technology modernization, embracing cloud environments, SaaS applications, and advanced security tools to enhance reliability and security. However, they now face the challenge of balancing innovation with strict regulatory compliance, hybrid workforce support, and evolving cybersecurity threats. In this episode of The Last Great Cloud Transformation series, host Mitch Ashley is joined by Matt Schneider (Cloudflare) and Dan Kent (Cloudflare) to explore the current state of IT modernization, key obstacles that could hinder progress, and the top priorities that can drive the greatest impact. Tune in to gain insights on how your organization can stay ahead in an increasingly complex digital landscape.

Organizations face a rising tide of external security threats targeting web apps, APIs and networks critical to business operations. The growing complexity of applications—driven by third-party integrations and generative AI—has expanded the attack surface, while traditional security approaches, like blocking known threats, fail to detect API-specific attacks. Relying on multiple point solutions often introduces management complexity and leaves gaps in protection. In this episode of The Last Great Cloud Transformation series, explore the challenges of safeguarding innovation and learn how to modernize external security to protect your assets and drive innovation.

Organizations eager to accelerate cloud transformations often face roadblocks from outdated legacy network architectures that struggle to support modern demands. Managing dedicated network infrastructure and hardware appliances while enabling access to SaaS apps and the Internet for diverse users creates challenges in visibility, control, performance, security, and cost. Cloud-based networking offers a solution by simplifying networks and driving progress, but success requires addressing resistance to change and misconceptions about losing control. This episode of The Last Great Cloud Transformation series highlights the importance of network consolidation, the role of cloud-based solutions, and strategies to prepare for successful implementation.

As enterprises shift applications to the cloud and adopt hybrid work models, traditional networks have struggled to keep pace, becoming more complex, less agile, and unable to deliver the security, performance, and manageability needed for modern demands. Legacy designs don’t adequately support today’s cloud-centric and distributed work environments, leaving organizations in need of a cloud-era network approach. Cloud-delivered networking offers a solution, providing connectivity and security close to users while enhancing performance and protection. A connectivity cloud enables seamless, secure connections across global edge locations, granting administrators centralized visibility and control. By leveraging its flexibility, organizations can modernize incrementally, adapting their network to evolving requirements and creating a foundation for ongoing cloud-driven innovation.

In today's episode, hosts Alan Shimel and Mitch Ashley are joined by Annika Garbers (Cloudflare). As nearly all enterprises embrace multi-cloud strategies, with 98% using or planning to use multiple clouds, they gain access to unique services, cutting-edge technologies, and competitive pricing. However, this approach brings significant security challenges. As organizations expand their cloud usage, they often lose visibility and control over their environments, struggling to manage disparate security tools from various vendors. Meanwhile, cyberthreats continue to rise in number and sophistication. Enter the connectivity cloud—a solution built on a global network that simplifies multi-cloud management. By providing seamless connectivity, unified security policies, and real-time threat intelligence, the connectivity cloud helps businesses regain control, ensuring security without sacrificing performance.

As organizations accelerate their cloud journey, many are losing visibility into and control over their IT environments. That’s a problem not only for securing apps and data, but also for complying with a growing number of government regulations. In particular, governments around the world are implementing data sovereignty and localization regulations such as GDPR in the EU, CCPA in California and many others regionally that define exactly where data must be processed and stored. Global organizations often have to comply with multiple regulations, while simultaneously trying to manage and protect their increasingly complicated environments. How can organizations keep moving forward in the cloud, and also adhere to numerous data sovereignty and data localization laws? They need a new kind of cloud — one that transforms the network, restoring visibility and control for their complex environments. A connectivity cloud delivers that transformation. By integrating enterprise networks and the Internet, organizations regain control over their environments. They can comply with laws by setting precise rules for where data is processed and stored. And they can securely route data to the right places without the performance penalties of using distant core data centers. With the connectivity cloud, data sovereignty and localization laws do not have to be obstacles on the cloud journey.

Organizations typically train AI models in large, centralized data centers provided by public cloud providers, but to effectively use AI in applications, it’s crucial to run these models closer to users. While small AI models can run on devices like smartphones and laptops, larger models require a robust edge network, consisting of GPU-powered data centers worldwide, to deliver fast, AI-driven insights. A connectivity cloud facilitates this by transforming networking, allowing organizations to build, secure, and run AI models at the edge, access open-source AI models, and leverage a global edge network for responsive, engaging user experiences. Hosts Alan Shimel and Mitch Ashley are joined by Rita Kozlov (Cloudflare) and Ranny Haiby (Linux Foundation) for a lively discussion on Techstrong.TV.

For 20 years the cloud computing revolution has been transforming how organizations operate and innovate. But the revolution is not yet complete. The final areas of transformation are networking and security, which have remained grounded in on-premises thinking and technologies. No longer. A majority of enterprises are planning to increase spending on network modernization. But what should the new, cloud-oriented network look like? It will be a “connectivity cloud,” an intelligent and programmable global cloud network, that enables organizations to modernize their networking and security practices, unlock new paths to innovation, and finally realize the full potential of the cloud revolution.