Nicira Network OS
The rumours are confirmed and Diane Greene is involved in a new Stanford startup called Nicira. According to the website and patent application, the gap they are filling is in network management: in their words, if the network is the computer, where’s the OS?
Some links for you to check out:
- Nicira Website – http://nicira.com
- Nicira Patent - Network operating system for managing and securing networks
- Randy Bias talkes about Open vSwitch in Xen
- Open vSwitch
Investors include my old bosses from Loudcloud (named before its time) Andreesson and Horowitz, and my previous employer at VMware, Diane Greene.
It looks like the product is a new type of virtual switch where the control plane is removed from the switching/routing device and moved to a “brain” somewhere else. Interestingly the Open vSwitch is open source and in Xen.
It looks like you get traditional network features in software, like the Nexus 1000v VSM/VEM with suggestions of a different kind of centralized design. Think of a layer above Cisco kit?
What would interest me is that cloud providers are talking about very, very fast terabit networks because 10GbE just isn’t enough for them. I wonder what it would take for Niciri to work at this scale? The challenge to get a product here is that the only way to test it is to do it, right? Nicira prospect: “I’m sure there’s a way to simulate a large scale network, but if you want me to run my service provider business on new technology that is in proven then I’m going to need proof, a roadmap, investment from you etc.”
Cleverly they’ve got Open vSwitch in Xen so if it’s being used today then that should answer part of the argument – what about the network management, though? Can’t wait to see more.
No doubt this will be of interest to my employer, Cisco 
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