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VMware to acquire network virtualization player Nicira

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CIOL Bureau
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PALO ALTO, USA: Virtualization software giant VMware Inc. announced that it will acquire Nicira Inc., a software-defined networking (SDN) and network virtualization for open source initiatives player.

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"VMware has led the server virtualization revolution, and we have the opportunity to do the same in data centre and cloud networking," said Paul Maritz, chief executive officer, VMware. "The acquisition of Nicira adds to our portfolio of networking assets and positions VMware to be the industry leader in software-defined networking."

VMware will acquire Nicira for approximately $1.05 billion in cash plus approximately $210 million of assumed unvested equity awards. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. The parties expect the acquisition to close during the second half of 2012. The acquisition has been approved by the boards of directors of both VMware and Nicira and the stockholders of Nicira.

"Nicira helps customers dramatically improve business velocity and efficiency by transforming how networking works in the Cloud era," said Steve Mullaney, chief executive officer, Nicira. "I'm thrilled to be joining forces with VMware to help build the software-defined datacenter."

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"The value we bring to customers lies in our open approach and the richness of capabilities in network virtualization," said Martin Casado, co-founder and chief technology officer, Nicira. "The combination of Nicira and VMware brings together two pioneering teams, and gives customers the industry leading SDN solution for any cloud environment, on any hypervisor in the enterprise and with Service Providers."

VMware plans to continue to support the open principles and technologies in Nicira solutions successful, including the Open vSwitch to connect physical networks and multiple hypervisors and the open extensibility framework to implement business-level policies from any cloud management system.

This will allow enterprises and service providers to create flexible network topologies that span any cloud environment. VMware is committed to maintaining Nicira's openness and bringing additional value and choices to heterogeneous environments and the OpenStack, CloudStack and other cloud related communities, says a release.

This acquisition expands VMware's networking portfolio, which includes the VMware vSphere virtual switching, VMware vCloud Director networking, vShield Network and Security software defined services, and the VXLAN protocol to provide a full suite of software-defined networking capabilities and a comprehensive solution line-up for virtualizing the network -- from virtual switching to virtualized layer 3-7 services.

This will allow customers to create a pool of network capacity on top of any network infrastructure from which they can easily support tens of thousands of isolated virtual networks with the simplicity and operational ease of creating and managing virtual machines, adds the release.

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