Nicira

Nicira was an American software company that developed software-defined networking (SDN) technologies and commercialized network virtualization platforms for data centers. Founded by prominent Internet researchers, the company influenced projects and institutions across the networking and open source ecosystems, contributing to both academia and industry transformations in cloud computing and virtualization. Nicira’s work intersected with major technology companies, standards efforts, and research labs, shaping how virtualization, orchestration, and network control are implemented.

History

Nicira was founded in 2007 by Martin Casado, Nick McKeown, and Scott Shenker after research at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley that produced the OpenFlow protocol and the concept of programmable networks. Early milestones included collaborations with the Open Networking Foundation, interactions with researchers at the Consortium for Networking Research and experiments influenced by groups at Raytheon BBN Technologies, the Intel research teams, and the International Telecommunication Union. Nicira engaged with cloud pioneers such as Rackspace, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure in pilot deployments and academic partnerships with labs at MIT, UC San Diego, and Princeton University. The company’s timeline includes participation in conferences such as SIGCOMM, NSDI, and HotNets and contributions that were cited by scholars affiliated with Bell Labs and RIKEN. Nicira’s founders and engineers interacted with venture ecosystems around Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and corporate research groups at IBM Research and Google prior to its acquisition.

Technology and Products

Nicira commercialized a network virtualization platform built on open source components like Open vSwitch and design principles related to OpenFlow and software-defined networking. Its flagship product, the Nicira Network Virtualization Platform (NVP), offered virtual network overlays that integrated with compute and storage platforms including VMware vSphere, KVM, and orchestration systems like OpenStack and CloudStack. NVP provided controllers, management APIs, and distributed virtual switches interoperable with standards and projects such as IETF, ONOS, OpenDaylight, and the Linux Foundation networking initiatives. The company’s technology interfaced with hypervisor vendors like Citrix and storage vendors such as EMC Corporation and NetApp, and it influenced implementations in datacenter fabrics designed by teams at Facebook and LinkedIn. Nicira’s software integrated with monitoring and telemetry tools from Nagios, Zabbix, and Prometheus-related ecosystems, and its approach informed service chaining and network function virtualization work at Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks.

Business and Funding

Nicira raised venture capital from prominent firms and investors in Silicon Valley and beyond, with backing tied to entities such as Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and strategic interest from corporations like Google and Microsoft. Its funding rounds and valuation attracted attention from media outlets and analysts at The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and trade press including Wired and TechCrunch. Nicira negotiated enterprise agreements and partnerships with cloud operators and OEMs including Dell, HP, and Oracle Corporation, and it competed in market segments alongside companies such as Nuage Networks, Big Switch Networks, and Arista Networks. The startup ecosystem that produced Nicira also connected to accelerators and incubators that had ties to Y Combinator alumni networks and alumni from Berkeley SkyDeck.

Acquisition by VMware

In 2012, Nicira was acquired by VMware in a landmark transaction that brought network virtualization into a traditional virtualization company’s portfolio. The acquisition generated commentary from industry analysts at Gartner and Forrester Research and prompted responses from competitors including Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks. After the acquisition, Nicira’s technology was integrated into VMware products such as VMware NSX and the company maintained collaborations with platform teams at Amazon Web Services and enterprise customers such as Comcast and Deutsche Telekom. Executives and engineers from Nicira joined VMware leadership and engaged with standards bodies including the IETF and the Open Networking Foundation to align SDN roadmaps with broader virtualization strategies.

Impact and Legacy

Nicira’s contributions reshaped networking research, influenced commercial SDN adoption, and served as a bridge between academic protocols like OpenFlow and production platforms used by Google and Facebook. Its founders continued to influence policy and technology through affiliations with Stanford University and UC Berkeley, and former employees founded or joined startups and projects linked to Cumulus Networks, Pluribus Networks, and cloud-native initiatives around Kubernetes and Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Nicira’s work appears in curricula at universities such as Carnegie Mellon University and Georgia Tech, and its ideas persist in standards and implementations by vendors like Arista Networks, Cisco Systems, and Juniper Networks. The company’s legacy is cited in analyses by McKinsey & Company and reflected in acquisitions in the networking sector involving Broadcom and Intel Corporation subsidiaries.

Category:Software-defined networking companies