The 2023 GigaOm Radar for Network Validation finds that Forward Networks offers the most robust network validation features and capabilities among the industry's top 13 vendors. GigaOm ranked Forward as exceptional across several key criteria, including end-to-end validation, compliance verification, security verification, hybrid multicloud support and network visualization, among others.

The 2023 GigaOm Radar analyzes 13 vendors' network validation offerings and provides a forward-looking assessment over a 12-to-18-month window. Forward Networks is ranked an "Outperformer" for supporting "a broad range of vendor devices with sophisticated validation and automated remediation capabilities."

Among its strengths, the report cites, "Scaling to over 50,000 network infrastructure devices and complex public cloud deployments, Forward Enterprise's digital twin allows network and security engineers to search the network like a database, trace all possible traffic flows, visualize on-premises and cloud Layer 2, Layer 3, Layer 4, and Layer 7 networks, predict network behavior before pushing changes live, perform forensic analysis, and accelerate troubleshooting."

"We applaud Forward Networks for their network validation capabilities and for the advancements they plan to make in this area over the coming months," said Ivan McPhee, senior industry analyst, GigaOm. "Based on our thorough assessment, Forward remains the top leader and contender in network validation."

Forward Enterprise delivers a digital twin of the network, by collecting state and configuration data across all network devices and cloud deployments (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform). This data is then used to create an always accurate topology (on-prem and multi-cloud), calculate all possible paths within the network, prove compliance, and make network configuration and behavior searchable and verifiable.

"Network validation is critical for ensuring reliability, security, compliance and optimization. It's imperative that enterprises identify the right solution to meet the needs of their environment," said David Erickson, CEO and co-founder, Forward Networks. "We appreciate GigaOm's deep analysis of the most promising solutions in this space and are proud to be ranked as an Outperformer for the second consecutive year."