The future of networking: cloud native networking

The way networks are built, secured, and managed is undergoing a profound shift. As organizations embrace distributed applications, remote work, and increasingly complex IT environments, networks must evolve to be more cloud-native, more secure by design, and more programmable than ever before.

This article is part of a three-part series explores the trends reshaping networking and the practical implications for businesses preparing for the decade ahead.

In part one, we examine the rise of cloud-native networking, from service meshes and application programming interface (API) driven control to the challenges of integrating across multi-cloud and hybrid environments and shift to open standards.

Cloud-native networking isn’t just a buzzword—it represents a fundamental redesign of how enterprises think about connectivity. Instead of being anchored in static infrastructure, networks are increasingly application-centric, designed to deliver agility, scalability, and resilience.

“Service meshes have fundamentally shifted network design from infrastructure-centric to application-centric models allowing a separation of data and control,” explained Marie-Claire Dwek, CEO at Newmark Security. This means that routing, security, and observability can be managed at the application layer, rather than buried deep in the infrastructure stack.

At the same time, APIs are transforming how networks are configured and consumed. Jean-Philippe Avelange, CIO at Expereo, explains to ITPro: “Network APIs have moved from being bolt-on conveniences to foundational building blocks. By exposing standardized, programmable interfaces, they allow developers to embed connectivity directly into CI/CD pipelines and enterprise applications.”

This shift is not just technical, as it changes who holds the keys to the network.

“Rather than pushing networking decisions down to the platform or infra teams, we’re seeing control planes shift upward to developers and security architects,” says Mayur Upadhyaya, CEO at APIContext. “This is not just about agility; it’s about policy enforcement at the point of orchestration.”

For enterprises, the benefit is clear: service meshes and APIs allow them to scale distributed applications, enforce consistent policies, and reduce human bottlenecks. But the transition is not without challenges.

Multi-cloud and hybrid networking bring complexity

While cloud-native principles promise agility, they also introduce new forms of complexity—particularly when enterprises operate across multiple cloud providers or hybrid environments.

“The most pressing integration challenges in multi-cloud and hybrid environments stem from the fundamental differences in how cloud providers and on premises infrastructure handle networking, security, and operational models,” emphasizes Dwek.

Each provider comes with its own identity systems, routing methods, and security models. Trying to stitch them together can create inconsistencies, blind spots, and extra costs.

Upadhyaya agrees but takes the view that the challenge is as much about data as it is about the infrastructure itself. “The biggest challenge isn’t the plumbing, it’s the metadata. Each cloud exposes identity, policy, routing, and telemetry in slightly different ways. This leads to gaps in trust, context, and visibility,” he says.

Enterprises are learning this lesson the hard way. Avelange points out that what works in one environment often breaks in another: “Policy enforcement is uneven, observability is fragmented, and resilience depends on manual workarounds.” IDC’s 2025 survey, commissioned by Expereo, revealed that over half of enterprises experienced revenue loss tied directly to network failures in multi-cloud scenarios.

The message is clear: multi-cloud is not a silver bullet. Without investment in abstraction layers, open control planes, and continuous compliance monitoring, it can become a liability rather than a source of flexibility.

Vendor consolidation and the role of open standards

Another trend shaping cloud-native networking is vendor consolidation. Cisco, Juniper Networks, VMware, HashiCorp, and others are snapping up companies and rolling out broader suites of tools. The question is: does this make life easier for enterprises, or does it lock them into bigger silos?

“The promise is interoperability, but the reality often looks like branded silos with slightly better integration,” says Upadhyaya. He cautions that unless customer pressure or open standards force it, consolidation often prioritizes revenue over user flexibility.

Avelange takes a more balanced view: “On one hand, mergers often deliver tighter integration inside a single vendor’s portfolio. On the other hand, consolidation also risks creating even larger proprietary silos. The deciding factor will be standards adoption.”

Open standards are therefore essential to keep the networking ecosystem fair, flexible, and future-proof. Initiatives like the Kubernetes Gateway API, SPIFFE (Secure Production Identity Framework For Everyone) for workload identities, and eBPF (Extended Berkeley Packet Filter) for kernel-level observability are helping to reduce vendor lock-in and enable portability.

“Open standards are the antidote to lock-in,” Avelange tells ITPro. “They provide enterprises with common building blocks that work across vendors and environments, making it harder for any single provider to trap customers inside proprietary models.”

Dwek also warns that under-standardization remains a risk, particularly around cross-cluster service discovery and policy enforcement. Without agreed formats and governance models, enterprises may find that their cloud-native environments become as brittle and fragmented as the legacy systems they were supposed to replace.

Preparing for a hybrid, programmable future

If there’s one consistent theme across all expert perspectives, it’s that the future of networking will be hybrid and programmable by design. Enterprises will continue to rely on cloud provider-native services for core connectivity, but they’ll increasingly layer open, programmable control planes on top to achieve flexibility and policy consistency.

Avelange says the optimal position over the next five years is one of a hybrid balance.

“Enterprises should lean on cloud provider-native networking services for what they do best: baseline connectivity, global reach, and built-in scalability. At the same time, relying solely on native features risks fragmentation and lock-in. The real differentiator will come from open, programmable control planes layered on top.”

Dwek also emphasises that success in cloud-native networking depends as much on people as on technology: “The human element – training teams and evolving organizational practices – often determines success more than technical architecture choices. Organizations should invest as much in people and processes as they do in technology platforms.”

The cultural shift cannot be understated. IT teams must evolve from configuring routers to writing code, from managing tickets to embedding networking into DevOps pipelines. Upadhyaya adds that this requires “new skill sets: not just YAML fluency, but also an understanding of developer ergonomics, observability tooling, and policy-as-code frameworks”.

For business leaders, the takeaway is that cloud-native networking is not optional. It is the baseline for supporting AI workloads, enabling global operations, and delivering seamless digital experiences. The organizations that embrace it early – while balancing standards, skills, and strategy – will be best positioned to thrive.

Coming up in this series

This article has explored the first piece of the networking future: cloud-native principles, service meshes, APIs, and standards. But this is only the start.

In part two, we turn to security, where zero trust principles are becoming the baseline for distributed networks. We’ll also explore the growing adoption of secure access service edge (SASE) and security service edge (SSE) architectures to support remote and branch access, as well as how organizations are beginning to plan for a quantum-safe future.

Finally, in part three, we look at how networks are becoming programmable and automated. From infrastructure as code (IaC) to observability for traffic flows and policies, we’ll consider how NetOps teams are evolving – shifting from traditional CLI-based management to code-driven automation.

Together, these three articles highlight not just where networking is heading, but what businesses need to do today to prepare for a future where agility, resilience, and programmability define success.