Nicira is a company focused on

software-defined networking Software-defined networking (SDN) technology is an approach to network management that enables dynamic, programmatically efficient network configuration in order to improve network performance and monitoring, making it more like cloud computing t ...

(SDN) and

network virtualization In computing, network virtualization is the process of combining hardware and software network resources and network functionality into a single, software-based administrative entity, a virtual network. Network virtualization involves platform vi ...

. Nicira created their own proprietary versions of the OpenFlow,

Open vSwitch Open vSwitch, sometimes abbreviated as OVS, is an open-source implementation of a distributed virtual multilayer switch. The main purpose of Open vSwitch is to provide a switching stack for hardware virtualization environments, while supporti ...

, and

OpenStack OpenStack is a free, open standard cloud computing platform. It is mostly deployed as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in both public and private clouds where virtual servers and other resources are made available to users. The software pl ...

networking projects. Nicira was co-founded in 2007 by

Martin Casado Martín Casado is a Spanish-born American software engineer, entrepreneur, and investor. He is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and was a pioneer of software-defined networking, and a co-founder of Nicira Networks. Early life and educati ...

, who served as the CTO,

Nick McKeown Nicholas (Nick) William McKeown FREng, is the SVP/GM of the Network and Edge Group at Intel and a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science departments at Stanford University. He has also started technology companies in Silicon ...

and

Scott Shenker Scott J. Shenker (born January 24, 1956 in Alexandria, Virginia) is an American computer scientist, and professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the leader of the Extensible Internet Group at the Intern ...

. On July 23, 2012,

VMware VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture. VMware's desktop software ru ...

announced they intended to acquire Nicira for $1.26 billion, a deal which closed the following month. Nicira technology was merged into VMware's vSwitch and marketed with the name NSX.

References

{{cite news, url=https://techcrunch.com/2012/07/23/vmware-buys-nicira-for-1-26-billion-and-gives-more-clues-about-cloud-strategy/, title=VMware Buys Nicira For $1.26 Billion And Gives More Clues About Cloud Strategy, last=Williams, first=Alex, date=July 23, 2012, work=

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately $ ...

, accessdate=8 August 2012

External links

Company home page
VMware Companies based in Palo Alto, California American companies established in 2007 Defunct software companies of the United States 2012 mergers and acquisitions