Cloud Computing: Big Switch’s plan to take on Cisco and VMware

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Stacey Higginbotham.

Big Switch Networks has come a long way since it launched in June of 2011, and two big announcements today showcasing its ecosystem and its newly launched products are signs that its going on the offensive in the software-defined networking space.

Big Switch Networks, the software-defined networking startup that last month scored $25 million, has pulled the covers off an impressive an ecosystem built around its Open Flow-based controller as well as applications built on top of that controller. The announcements, expected on Tuesday, should make Big Switch a force to be reckoned with in the software defined networking sector…

It’s also a series of announcements that are as manipulated as a Dallas socialite’s debut. Some of the elements have been in place since spring and many of the ecosystem partners have been working with Big Switch for months. Still, like the towering hair and the glittering jewels of the debutante, this is a new announcement designed for maximum effect — and it does impress. On the ecosystem side Big Switch has disclosed a pantheon of formal partners as well as other players in the networking world that didn’t want a partnership but Big Switch engineers found a way to integrate into its ecosystem anyway. (Guess what category VMware, which purchased Big Switch rival Nicira for $1.26 billion last summer, is in?)…

Read more from the source @ http://gigaom.com/cloud/heres-big-switchs-plan-to-take-on-cisco-and-vmware/