Nicira’s CEO Martin Casado
VMware will shell out $1.26 billion in cash and an assumption of existing equity to buy Nicira, a company that has built software to do for networking what VMware has done for virtualizing computing. That’s a lot of money, especially when you consider how few production-level implementations there are of the software-defined networks that Nicira is building.
Ncira was created five years ago and has raised $50 million from investors that included Diane Greene, an original founder of VMware. It makes controller software that helps free the act of moving data and packets around a network from the constraints of networking hardware – an increasingly tough problem inside highly virtualized and webscale data centers. As I explained in a story on its launch (it was titled, “Meet Nicira. Yes, people will call it the VMware of networking”):
Nicira is one of several companies attempting to solve the problem that Greene helped create when she co-founded VMware to push hypervisors and virtualization. Once servers were virtualized, it created an easy way to separate computing from the physical infrastructure. The benefits of server virtualization were more-agile compute infrastructures — a developer would spin up a server in minutes as opposed to waiting days for approvals — as well as consolidating IT. Storage followed, but holding the whole virtualized infrastructure effort back was networking. Like a bird with its wings clipped, IT was tethered to the physical hardware by networking.
Nicira has plenty of paying customers including eBay, AT&T, Rackspace and NT, but it’s unclear how many of these are running Nicira’s controllers in their production environment. With this purchase, my sense is that VMware is paying big money to get in on this space because its collaborations with Cisco have failed to deliver on a true solution for many of its customers, and it can’t afford to be left behind as the wave of interest and eventual spending on software-defined networking hits a peak.
In a blog post covering the deal, VMware CTO Steve Herrod explains that Nicira will fit in with VMware’s vision of a software defined data center — although the specifics of that vision have yet to be unveiled. And it’s true that if we consider how Nicira customer Calligo is using the Nicira controller, it fits within what I would think of as a software-defined data center — essentially a pool of compute resources that are tied together with software and where the physically hardware can reside in different data centers and pulled up for use as needed. The whole process is programmable and automated.
In pushing this model, VMware was always going to have to sign partnerships to deliver the software-defined networking elements, because its own VXLAN option was more of a an encapsulation scheme than a true separation of the networking logic from the hardware pushing the bits. By buying Nicira, VMware has chosen a software-defined networking vendor that plays with open protocols such as Open Flow, but is still focused on keep a proprietary edge to its business. That’s a similar strategy that VMware seems to be pursuing as well.
The deal is expected to close during the second half of this year. The deal includes approximately $1.05 billion in cash plus approximately $210 million of assumed unvested equity awards.
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Monday, July 23, 2012
VMware to buy Nicira for $1.26B in a strategic leap of faith — Cloud Computing News
Olympic legacy to live on though data center | Datacenter Dynamics
The London Legacy Development Corporation announced another win for East London’s technology dreams, which this time includes a large data center at London’s Olympic Park.
UK data center company Infinity is one of the joint venture members behind the project.
Once the athletes and spectators have vacated the site, which will be renamed the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, workers from the JV called iCITY will move in to turn the Press and Broadcast Centre into what they say will become a world-class center for innovation and enterprise.
They claim the project will create 4,600 direct jobs on site as start-ups, media companies, a university, digital academy, restaurants, bars and more move in.
A further 2,000 jobs are expected to be created through the supply chain and consumer spending.
iCITY is a joint venture between real estate investment and advisory company Delancey and Infinity SDC.
Infinity will build a data center that will be between 250,000 to 350,000 sq ft data center with 90MW capacity designed for low-latency, high capacity data center needs.
It will sit on what is currently one of the most digitally connected buildings in the world, set up as a 24-hour media hub for more than 800 journalists covering the Games.
The building was built in ten weeks and includes state-of-the-art utilities, power and digital connectivity, 52,000 sq m of studio space over two double-storey floors.
It also has its own 200m long High Street with banks, travel agents and other facilities, a Transport mall and a 12,000 sq m catering village.
The building’s 2,500 sq m roof is flat and covered with concrete, gravel and moss and logs to encourage local invertebrates and other local wildlife
Infinity SDC CEO Martin Lynch said the new data cener will help the company move into new London markets around digital media but will also target large investment banks, insurers, international brokerages, telecommunications companies and outsources.
“This is a strategically important move for Infinity that sees us expand into a new sector,” Lynch said.
“The data center at the heart of this development will ensure low latency, high capacity and streaming environments that are ideally suited to animation, post production and broadcasting.”
The park will be open in separate phases from 27 July 2013, following the removal of temporary venues, the building of new roads and bridges and the building of its own neighbourhood.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Finland Wants to Become Sustainable Data Center Hub | Corporate Social Responsibility
Finland Wants to Become Sustainable Data Center Hub
Kajaani, the capital of the province of Kainuu in central Finland, wants to pitch itself as an ideal place for sustainable data center operations. Region representatives say the area has excellent power infrastructure coming from renewable sources, perfect natural cooling environments, strong fiber connectivity to Western and Eastern Europe internet exchanges, and strong governmental support.
As part of this business campaign, Invest in Kainuu will host an investment forum on October 26. Organized in collaboration with consulting firm BroadGroup, the forum will explore why Northern Europe is attracting companies like Google and Facebook to establish data center facilities there.
The region offers a number of benefits, such as the availability of significant energy capacity (120MW on site renewable and 400MW diverse grid connectivity) and zoned greenfield adjacent land, which is immediately available.
Kajaani has been selected by the Finnish Government to be the home of its new Super Computer Data Centre on a UPM site that previously housed a paper mill, and which is due to go live in the third quarter of 2012. The Super Computer project is due to establish the world's first zero-emissions Super Computer, tapping the local environment in terms of 100 percent non-mechanical cooling (water and air resources).
"As data centers become more integrated with IT and cloud thinking then a different mindset may be applied to datacentre locations," said Steve Wallage, managing director of BroadGroup Consulting. "More broadly, we could think differently about data center procurement, towards smaller deployments at more diverse locations than simply the 'big shed'".
The company said in a recent report that data center location is receiving much wider consideration than previously. It noted that changes in procurement are occurring with corporates increasingly using broader IT and outsourcing specialists, who have a greater willingness to use different locations.
To find out more, visit the forum's website.
Image credit: Wikipedia
