Nicira looks to disrupt networking space with A-list client roster

Nicira, a network virtualization startup with more than $50 million in venture funding from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners and NEA, as well as VMware founder Diane Greene and venture capitalist Andy Rachleff, emerged from stealth mode today with an A-list of customers including AT&T (NYSE: T), eBay, Fidelity Investments, Rackspace and NTT.

The company said its Network Virtualization Platform technology was task-built for cloud networking. It allows owners of multiple networks, like AT&T, to get extra capacity when it's needed without having to make huge capex investments. The software-based system creates a distributed virtual network infrastructure in cloud data centers that is completely decoupled and independent from physical network hardware, essentially expanding the pipe through which data travels.

Nicira said NVP is a scalable software system implemented at the network edge and managed by distributed clustered controller architecture. It forms a thin software layer that treats the physical network as an IP backplane, allowing the creation of virtual networks that have the same properties and services as physical networks.

"All of the intelligence, all of the control, all of the services now get done in the virtual space," chief executive Stephen Mullaney told AllThingsDigital.

The technology potentially alters the network landscape, landscape currently occupied by companies like Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR), dramatically, specifically because it eliminates the need for service providers and companies like eBay and Rackspace, to continually build out their own networks. Less build out means more troubles for companies selling hardware.

Commercially available since July, NVP is built on a usage-based, subscription-pricing model.

For more:
- see this release
- see this AllThingsDigital article

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