By Cade Metz
VMware paid $1.26 billion to acquire virtual-networking startup Nicira. And eBay just provided another reason why this massive purchase makes perfect sense.
On Monday, the web auction house announced that it’s now using Nicira’s virtual network controller inside the data centers that underpin eBay.com and various other online marketplaces. The company is part of a long list of big-name web outfits and internet service providers that have adopted Nicira’s controller, a means of building and managing computer networks that exist only as software.
Read MoreBy Art Fewell
Shortly after VMware/Nicira announcement, I was able to have a conversation with Nicira co-founder and ‘father of SDN’ Martin Casado about the hypervisor network and its impact on the future of networking.
Martin Casado is not your average executive, nor is he your run-of the mill computer scientist. First, his graduate research led to the creation of OpenFlow and the massive transformational revolution it is creating across all domains of networking. Not content with one major revolution, Casado's work led his team to revolutionize the way networking is done in the hypervisor with their open vSwitch. While networking is not as center-stage as cloud computing, from my view Mr. Casado looks a lot like the Larry Page or Sergey Brin of the networking industry. As 'the cloud' takes shape we have seen a new guard of technology savvy executives and business savvy technologists that 'get' the cloud and are laying the groundwork for the new era. Equal parts strategist and scientist, if looking for the direction the networking industry will evolve in the Cloud era, I cant think of anyone who has had a greater impact than Martin Casado.
Read MoreBy Ben Worthen
Start-Ups, Cisco Embrace New Technology to Refashion Computer Networking
A new approach to computer networking promises to refashion the data center, creating a crop of start-ups that are forcing old-guard vendors like Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper Networks Inc. to shift strategies.
Read MoreBy Julie Bort
Consumer tech gets most of the attention but enterprise tech is really the stuff that's changing the world.
It is changing the way you work, the way you find a job, even the kind of jobs available.
Plus, it's enriching investors. Where Facebook's IPO was a mess, enterprise IPOs from Jive, Splunk, and Infoblox were big hits. And there's more hot enterprise IPOs coming.
So it's time shine a spotlight on the enterprise tech that is quietly rocking your world and the people who are leading it.
Read MoreBy Stacey Higginbotham
The world of information technology is always changing. But over the last six years it has started to change more rapidly with the genesis of cloud providers, the growth in the number of giant webscale companies, and the widespread use of virtualization in enterprise environments. A new era is upon us.
Read MoreBy Puni Rajah
The first of our IP EXPO Rainmakers Spotlight series shines the spotlight on Nicira, a company that claims to be the first to deliver complete network virtualisation.
Read MoreCopyright ©2013 Nicira, Inc. All rights reserved. NICIRA and its logo are registered trademarks of Nicira.