After raising $6.6 million in October, Pica8 is launching its combination of OpenFlow-based hardware and the software to control massively scaled-out data centers. The company is hoping that buyers will rip out old gear and replace it with its commodity switches and software. Read more »
Big Switch Networks has come a long way since it launched in June of 2011, and two big announcements today showcasing its ecosystem and its newly launched products are signs that its going on the offensive in the software-defined networking space. Read more »
The growth of public and private cloud services places new demands on the IT organization, particularly when it comes to the scale, agility and management of the data center. SDNs are a response to those demands, providing opportunities for IT managers to improve their network operations. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Cyan, a company that has a history making optical packet networking gear as well as software to manage its own boxes and that of other network equipment companies, has hopped on the software-defined networking bandwagon with its Blue Planet controller. Read more »
The SDN startup’s Series B round comes courtesy of new investors Redpoint Ventures and Goldman Sachs. The money will be used to staff up an already tech-heavy engineering staff as the company readies its SDN controllers and applications for the market. Read more »
In the wake of a $1 billion acquisition of Nicira, BigSwitch said that it has seen 6,000 downloads of its SDN controller software. Big Switch is the likely the next big buy for software defined networking, but who will be the suitor? Read more »
VMware’s planned acquisition of Nicra for $1.25 billion represents the evolution of networking beyond the hardware-dominated point of view that has sustained the industry for decades. Here’s what that means for startups in the networking realm as well as for the industry giants. Read more »
The idea of software defined networking enabled by the open-source OpenFlow protocol is under threat from corporations intent on using the OpenFlow name and the promise of software defined networking to lock buyers into their gear, according to a Big Switch Networks executive. Read more »
Cisco, an incredibly active acquirer, is ready to start doing deals again, according to John Chambers. We think it should be focusing on the cloud and beefing up its core networking skills by buying some of the companies we list in our story. Read more »
Embrane, the not-so-stealthy startup that’s one of several hoping to make it big on the concept of virtualizing the network, launched Sunday. The company, founded in 2010 by Dante Malagrinò, has raised $27 million to provide firewalls, load balancers and more via distributed software. Read more »
Nicira, the not-so-stealthy startup working in the network virtualization space was “outed” Monday by the New York Times as a secret startup pursuing the next hot trend in computing. But the article overstated Nicira’s secretiveness and perhaps its role as network virtualization hits the mainstream. Read more »
The world of networking is changing, thanks to shifting traffic patterns, more widely distributed webscale systems and the economic need for the networking world to catch up to where the computing and server world is today. This trend toward networking virtualization has huge implications for vendors such as Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Dell and Intel, but it also could become the foundation for an entire new ecosystem of startups and value creation, much like what the creation of the hypervisor did for computing. In this research note we look at what network virtualization is, why we’re moving toward it, what OpenFlow is and what the opportunities are for companies, both large and small, beyond that technology. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Facebook, SeaMicro and Zynga. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The shift in networking and the hype around the OpenFlow protocol has led to a a lot of confusion and overinflation of what OpenFlow can do. To get a bit more grounded in reality, I spoke with NEC about what its customers are doing. Read more »
BigSwitch was one of 10 companies launching at our Structure 2011 conference last week, but it’s also riding a sea change in the networking world. I chatted briefly with BigSwitch cofounders to learn a bit more about its goals and opportunities. Read more »
Networking is about to change. It is inevitable that an open-source hardware architecture for the large chassis switch gets released, likely driven by a consortium of large customers. When combined with the external software control enabled by OpenFlow, this will really shake things up. Read more »
