Startup claims to offer holy grail of remote connectivity — hybrid access that outperform VPN, SD-WAN and ZTNA solutions by 30x or more

A button with the caption VPN
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

A new start-up has came forward with quite a bold claim - its remote connectivity offering outperforms VPNs, SD-WAN, and ZTNA solutions, by at least 30 times. 

While it’s not something we could independently verify at this time, if the claim has any truth to it, it would be the holy grail of remote connectivity. 

The company in question is called Cloudbrink, and in a press release shared with TechRadar Pro, it said its hybrid access-as-a-service (HAaaS) solution was tested by network lab Broadband Testing, which concluded that its service, “improved the performance of applications over unreliable internet connections by 30x or more even when fully secured.”

Exaggerated claims?

Explaining the problem and the solution Broadband Testing director Steve Broadhead said that between performance and security, there must always be a compromise. “If you use a VPN for example, you can expect up to a 90% immediate loss of effective bandwidth,” he said, adding that most SSE and ZTNA services also hurt the performance. 

“What’s remarkable in Cloudbrink’s case is that a fully secured ZTNA service still delivers hugely accelerated performance compared to the same connection with nothing added,” Broadhead added.

Cloudbrink also said that a Fortune 100 entertainment and media company benchmarked its service against some of the most popular service providers in the VPN, SD-WAN, and ZTNA industries, prompting the company to do the same. 

“Our service was so much faster than their existing platforms, that the company suspected at first there was something wrong with its test rig, Prakash Mana, chief executive of Cloudbrink said. “Cloudbrink even outperformed a direct connection with security turned off. We asked Broadband Testing to run its own tests under controlled conditions to confirm the customer’s findings.”

But testing in controlled environment is one thing, and real-life use another. Broadhead said that it discovered “a number of scenarios” where the 30x figure was “hugely exceeded”, especially in more challenging conditions. “The Cloudbrink solution also increased throughput and reduced transfer time even in perfect network conditions.”

If the above results appear in the wild, too, we’re bound to hear about it sooner rather than later. 

More from TechRadar Pro

Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.