Can Nicira's Network Virtualization Platform Keep Its Promises?

Nicira, which has just emerged from stealth mode, says it has cracked the code to deliver true network virtualization. The company claims its Network Virtualization Platform brings the capabilities and benefits of server and storage virtualization to the network, addressing what has been a physical barrier in the path to further virtualization progress. The news has been heralded as a "game changer" and "the biggest change to networking in 25 years," and a number of major companies such as AT&T, eBay, Rackspace, and Fidelity are paying customers.

But following the initial hoopla, some questions are being asked about how well the Nicira platform can deliver network services via software through all of the layers of a typical enterprise network. And others ask whether decades of legacy physical network innovation can so easily be replaced.

"Think of the number of man-years that have been sunk into the networking layers that they are trying to recreate in software," said Jon Oltsik, a principal analyst at the research firm Enterprise Strategy Group. "Conceptually they are spot-on, but I think to go in and replace IP backbone networking with virtual software is a tall order."

Another analyst, Zeus Kerravala of ZK Research, also called the Nicira news significant "in theory."

To be sure, analysts like Oltsik understand the problem, which he has defined as "data center network discontinuity." The use of server virtualization has consolidated the size of data centers and improved operational efficiency, but the network has not kept up. At the same time, more demands have been placed on the network to deliver services such as intrusion detection and prevention, firewalls, and load balancing. So Nicira's Network Virtualization Platform (NVP) is certainly compelling, he says.

According to a recent InformationWeek Research trending survey, if enterprises don't plan to virtualize the majority of their servers by the end of 2012, they'll be firmly in the minority. The largest growth came in the number of respondents who say they'll virtualize servers. Just 13% planned to do that back in 2010. This year, the number almost doubled, with 25% citing that goal. Server consolidation was the top driver, by far, for virtualization efforts in 2010. Now that's tied with desires for high availability, better disaster recovery, and improved flexibility and agility.

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