When Vision Becomes Reality
plat . form
/’patfÔrm/
noun
- an underlying computer system on which application programs can run
Working at a start-up that’s trying to create an entirely new way of doing something can take your emotions on a roller coaster ride. One minute you’re loving the fact that you’re working your tail off to create something new, innovative and different; and the next minute you’re frustrated because change takes time and you want to prove that the vision the team is chasing, but not everyone is there yet.
For the Embrane family, today is a moment when we’re reminded why we put in those hours and push through those challenges.
If you’ve followed the Embrane story, you know we’ve been touting our plans to be THE platform for delivering virtual network services to enterprises and service providers. The vision Dante and Marco had when they started Embrane was that the Embrane heleos platform not only would power our own agile network services, but we would deliver that value to third-parties. We’ve listened to our customers, identified trends and evolved our solution to prove our platform was indeed a system on which application programs can run. We spent countless hours building the premier platform delivering virtual appliance lifecycle management.
Well, today the Embrane family gets to celebrate another huge step in our evolution. All of that hard work and vision led us to this.
Today we announced that forward-thinking companies like A10 Networks, Citrix and Cisco are recognizing that running their virtual network services on the Embrane platform will bring unprecedented levels of agility and automation to the data center. When you add to it that Embrane is the platform for lifecycle management of virtual networks services within Cisco’s highly touted Application Centric infrastructure (ACI), the Embrane family has ample reason to be proud.
But we’re not just in this just for pride. We want it to be about solving customer problems. We want to give customers the ability to get best-in-class network services from the likes of A10 Networks, Citrix and Cisco without giving up on the promise of agility and automation. That’s what we delivered today.
I think Soni Jiandani from Cisco summed up the value of today’s announcement the best when she said:
For more information about ACI and Embrane’s role in it, you should really read Jason Plank’s recent blog: ACI Ecosystem: Introduction to an Open Ecosystem, L4-L7 device packages, and Embrane integration!
Virtual appliance lifecycle management is a critical requirement when creating a virtual network infrastructure as it automates dozens of otherwise manual steps required to license, create, deploy and maintain virtual appliances. We can now automate each of these steps for the likes of:
- A10 Networks vThunder
- Citrix Netscaler VPX and Netscaler 1000v,
- Cisco ASAv; and
- Sourcefire virtual appliances
I would anticipate more partners being added to the ecosystem in the near future, but for now, we are on our way to fulfilling our vision and for giving enterprises and service providers the platform for real network agility and application-centric networking. In fact, stay tuned for an exciting new customer deployment we’ll be announcing in the next week or so.
It’s a great day to be part of the Embrane family!
