PlexxiPulse—Our Newest Board Member

This week we announced that Clark Masters, Senior Vice President of HANA Cloud Computing at SAP, has been appointed to our Board of Directors—filling the seat vacated when Rich Napolitano was named Plexxi CEO last November. At SAP, Clark is responsible for strategy and advanced architectures relating to in-memory database operation in public and private clouds. With more than 30 years of technology and industry leadership, he brings a wealth of high-technology vision, knowledge and execution to our board. Clark will help to support our ongoing expansion and efforts to drive the networking industry’s transition to an application and data-focused era. Join us in welcoming Clark to the Plexxi team!

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Have a great weekend!

Enterprise Networking Planet: SDN Gets Some Help with Scalability
By Arthur Cole
Nearly everyone who is contemplating software defined networking (SDN) these days is thinking about scale-out architectures.  Big Data and the Internet of Everything have the enterprise industry spooked that if a solution does not scale, it isn’t likely to be taken seriously. What most IT executives may not realize, however, is that scale is not actually Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—The Impact of the Third Era

Trends in big data and IoT are driving a massive shift towards what we call the Third Era of information technology. Efficient and agile networks are needed to support the scaled-out applications of tomorrow. Ed Henry, an engineer here at Plexxi (also known as @NetworkN3rd) discussed the impact that the Third Era has on the network in a blog post this week. He explores how unprecedented amounts of data will affect network infrastructure, applications, and operations.

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Enjoy!

Network World: IDC’s state of the network at Interop: Change, or be left behind
By Brandon Butler
The confluence of mobile, social and big data trends are driving a tectonic transformation and businesses that do not change with these trends will be left behind, analysts from research firm IDC said at Interop. IDC says the so-called third platform, which includes those mega-trends of cloud and mobile workloads, will disrupt one-third of leading businesses across all sectors. “The third platform is already fueling a digital transformation across enterprise IT, and the only way IT will succeed is by transforming itself,” said Rohit Mehra, research vice president Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Breaking Down the Distributed Network

Most networks today (including Plexxi solutions) are built as distributed networks. This type of infrastructure reduces complexity and significantly increases network capabilities. Our own Marten Terpstra took a deep dive into the future of distributed networks this week on the Plexxi blog. He identifies and breaks down the “central command” system of today’s distributed networks, and its impact on the functionality of network solutions as a whole. Give it a read before you head out for the weekend.

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Have a great weekend!

CIO: Declare Your Independence – Virtualize that Network!
By Paul Gillan
Although a relative newcomer to virtualization compared to its server and storage brethren, virtualized networks – and their companion, software-defined networking (SDN) technology – are a no-brainer for any company that’s virtualizing other parts of its IT infrastructure. Once you move platforms to an internal cloud, you’ll want the underlying transport layer to deliver the same flexibility as the virtual resource. Storage, servers, desktops and software all benefit from a more flexible network.

Re/code: The Third Phase of Big Data
By Sumit Sadana
Back in the pre-Internet era of the Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Are you ready for Interop 2015?

We had a great time showcasing the CloudOOP Big Data Pod at HIMSS this week with our new partner, PSSC Labs. We are back in Nashua and the team is busy gearing up for Interop 2015 in Las Vegas. CEO Rich Napolitano and other members of the Plexxi team will be at the show from April 28–30 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. We have a lineup of demos you will not want to miss. Drop us a line on Twitter or email [email protected] if you are interested in meeting with the team at the show. We’ll see you there!

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Have a great weekend!

Enterprise Networking Planet: Optimizing SDN for the Coming Data Deluge
By Arthur Cole
There are two ways of looking at the state of enterprise technology today. Either challenges like Big Data and the Internet of Things are fueling the development of the cloud and software defined infrastructure, or cloud and SDx development are driving Big Data and the IoT. Either way, these twin forces affecting Information Technology have at least given the enterprise a goal and the means Continue reading

PSSC Labs Partnership: Delivering an Integrated, High-Performance, Big Data Application Cloudera Solution

You may have noticed that last week, Plexxi, in partnership with PSSC Labs, announced a new solution that will change how companies install and operate new big data infrastructure. This partnership combines Plexxi’s SDN switching and control with PSSC’s high-performance servers and Cloudera Enterprise big data platform.

The Scale-out Network Comes to Big Data

We already know that the way Enterprise applications are built is changing rapidly. New applications are being written to be far more distributed and designed to scale horizontally across the infrastructure. This allows companies to easily scale performance, storage, and networking power as the application needs grow. Scale-out applications like Cloudera Enterprise’s CDH (Cloudera’s Adache Hadoop distribution) are already built to easily scale across compute and storage – meaning administrators can incrementally add new servers that add more processing power and data storage capabilities to the application. Yet the “state of the art” way to build the network is to pre-determine the total number of servers needed and to build a scale-up (2-tier) leaf/spine network. Plexxi’s network is a true scale-out network – no hierarchies, no pre-determined ceilings for number of server ports, and just a single cable to add a new switch to the Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—We’re Headed to HIMSS

Are you attending HIMSS 2015 in Chicago? We’ll be there with our newest partner! This week we announced our partnership with PSSC Labs. This partnership combines Plexxi’s SDN switching and control with PSSC’s high-performance compute and Cloudera enterprise. We’ll be showcasing the integrated solution, called the CloudOOP Big Data Pod, for the first time April 12 – 16 at HIMSS 2015. We’ll also be demonstrating how to effectively manage Big Data applications across a Hadoop cluster. Visit us at the PSSC Labs booth (#5284). We can’t wait to see you.

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Enjoy!

TechTarget: How SDN and SDS are shaping future clouds
By Jim O’Reilly
Tenants of clouds, whether public or hybrid, want the control mechanisms of a typical in-house data center. They don’t want to give up on virtual storage area networks and firewalls, access controls, governance and compliance and all the other security and control systems that go with ownership. But, at the same time, they want to see the promised agility, rapid scaling and cost effectiveness that brought them to the cloud in the first place.

Enterprise Networking Planet: The SDN-IoT Connection
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PlexxiPulse—Spotlight on SDN

Infonetics analyst Clifford Grossner recently released a SDN enterprise study which found that nearly 80 percent of medium and large size businesses plan to implement SDN technology in the data center by 2017. The survey of 153 businesses also revealed that 65 percent of respondents are currently conducting data center SDN lab trials or plan to do so in 2015. Marcia Savage of NetworkComputing cites the Infonetics data and names SDN as a top networking trend in a piece this week titled “What’s Hot In Networking: 7 Key Trends.” We’re excited to see SDN in the spotlight. Marcia’s piece and the Infonetics study are both worth a read before you kick off your weekend.

Interested in seeing Plexxi in action? Contact [email protected] to schedule a demo today!

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Enjoy!

Network World: How SDN will help earn money, not just save
By Ajay Malik
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is transforming the network and giving network operators unprecedented network programmability, automation, and control. Network administrators are exploring it as it can help them not just optimize total cost of ownership, but do more with Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Reflecting on Arrow’s IoT Immersions Conference

We took a short ride to Boston this week’s for Arrow’s Internet of Things Immersions Conference. Dave Husak, our CTO and EVP of products and technology, participated in a panel alongside executives from Arrow, EMC, Intel, NXP and Oracle to discuss the role software defined networking will play in future Big Data deployments. Dave spoke to why innovative infrastructure is necessary to manage mixed workloads and big data jobs of different priorities. Interested in seeing Plexxi in action? We’ll be on the road for the next few months—stay tuned or drop us a line at [email protected] for more information.

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Have a great weekend!

Light Reading: Open Networking Acronym Soup
By Marc Cohn
During the past few years, software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) have emerged as the next big thing in networking. As a result, we’ve seen established networking standards development organizations (SDOs) such as the ITU, IETF, TMF, among others, leap on the bandwagon to address SDN and NFV. In addition, many new industry groups have been created, including the ONF, ETSI NFV ISG and ONUG, not to mention Continue reading

Plexxi Pulse – Bringing Data to Life at Arrow’s IoT Immersions Conference

Next week, our co-founder, CTO and EVP of products and technology, Dave Husak, will be heading to Arrow’s Internet of Things Immersions Conference to participate in two panels. The event will be held on March 26 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA.

The first panel Husak will join will weigh in on the topic “Bringing Data to Life: How to Turn Data Intelligence into Actionable Sales Growth.” Husak will be joined on this panel by other industry thought leaders from Arrow, EMC, Intel, NXP and Oracle. Husak and the other panelists will analyze how to effectively harness massive amounts of sales data and turn it into something actionable and meaningful for their organization. He’ll follow up this panel with a general panel at 6:50 as part of the Innovator’s Showcase.

In case you’re in the area, you can register for the event here. If you aren’t, follow along with us on Twitter here.

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Have a great weekend!

Network Computing: SDN Benefits For The SME

By Tom Hollingsworth

Working in a small or medium enterprise (SME) is a constant juggling Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Arrow IoT Immersions in Boston 3/26

Last week, we were in Santa Clara, California for Arrow Electronics’ Internet of Things Immersions conference. We demonstrated our big data fabrics, learned about Arrow’s #FiveYearsOut philosophy and conversed with innovators and thought leaders from businesses, government agencies and academia. We will be exhibiting at the last installment of the Immersions conference in Boston on March 26 at the Hynes Convention Center. Come see Plexxi in action and to talk with our team about the next era of IT. You can register to attend here. We can’t wait to see you!

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Have a great weekend!

Channelnomics: SDN and SDS key for CIOs – Walsh
By Jessica Meek
Software defined networking (SDN) and software defined storage (SDS) are key concerns for chief information officers (CIOs), delegates at the ITEX 2015 National Conference and Expo in Fort Lauderdale, FL heard today. In his keynote address, Lawrence M. Walsh, CEO and chief analyst at The 2112 Group, said this was a top concern for CIOs he speaks with. “CIOs consistently tell me that what’s getting them excited is SDN and SDS. This is the ability to Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—What Does a Third Era Network Look Like?

You may have noticed that we’ve been spending some time out west demonstrating our big data fabrics and sharing our vision for the third era of networking. You’ll be seeing more meet-ups and live demonstrations in the near future, so keep an eye on the blog and on Twitter to see where we are headed next. In the meantime, can you name the 5 main characteristics of a third era network? Hint: the answer is somewhere on the Plexxi website. Tweet us your answers for the chance to win some Plexxi swag. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Enjoy!

InformationWeek: 8 Ways IoT Will Change IT Forever
By Andrew Froehlich
There has been a great deal of discussion lately surrounding the concept of how the Internet of Things (IoT) will change everything. But very little of it really dives into the nuts and bolts of how IoT could dramatically change the roles and opportunities for those of us who work within IT. Here are eight ways we think IT will change in an IoT world. We’re focusing on areas of IT that Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Demonstrating Big Data Fabrics

If you’ve been following us on the blog or on social media, you know that we announced our partnership with Big Data platform provider Cloudera last month. And, that a few months ago, our own Ed Henry demonstrated how to construct Big Data fabrics that easily integrate with systems like OpenStack and Cloudera during an installation of SDxCentral’s DemoFriday series. That webinar was recently published on SDxCentral’s website. You can watch the full presentation here to see the next generation of data fabrics in action. Enjoy!

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Have a great weekend!

Enterprise Networking Planet: The Future of White Box Networking in the Enterprise
By Arthur Cole
It seems that the farther along we get on the road to SDx, the more pertinent question is, what role will white box play in an increasingly distributed network environment? To be sure, white box hardware will see a dramatic rise in web-facing hyperscale operations in the years to come, but the advantages the technology brings to the table start to erode as scale drops. This means the traditional enterprise facility, which still has a vital role to Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Simply A Better Network

As enterprises move from experimentation to full-fledged deployments of Big Data, supporting networks need to have the capabilities to support increased bandwidth. Our CEO, Rich Napolitano spoke with CRN’s Meghan Ottolini on this very subject recently. Rich explains how Plexxi’s architecture is designed to scale out to accommodate the next era of technology applications. See below for video footage; it’s definitely worth a look before you head out for your weekend.

Please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Enjoy!

Nashua Telegraph: Plexxi likes the Nashua network
By David Brooks
There are plenty of reasons to locate a tech startup in one place rather than another. For networking firm Plexxi, part of Nashua’s appeal is institutional memory. “There’s definitely a talent base up here, from the days of Wang, DataGeneral and Digital. That’s a very complex, system-oriented world, ” said Rich Napolitano, who has been CEO since November, and whose first job out of college was at Digital Equipment Corp. in almost the same building where Plexxi now resides.

New York Times: HP Targets Cisco and Facebook With New Line of Open-Source Networking Gear
By Quentin Hardy
Hewlett-Packard said on Thursday that Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Leading the pack

This week, Facebook announced a new modular switch called the “6-pack,” which builds off of The Wedge (Facebook’s innovative piece of networking equipment announced last June.) The development of the “6-pack” comes on the heels of a relatively new white box movement within the networking industry where generic, off-the-shelf switching and routing hardware is used rather than custom-made infrastructure, making networks more manageable and easy to scale. Julie Bort covered this very topic earlier this week in her Cisco earnings roundup for Business Insider, and cited Plexxi as one of the startups leading the charge against complicated, legacy-type infrastructures like Cisco. Here at Plexxi, one of our top priorities is to provide our customers with the most efficient network possible and we’re proud to be recognized as an industry trailblazer.

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Have a great weekend!

Streetwise Journal: Cisco CEO: We Will Crush Facebook and Have Fun Beating VMware
By Larry Banks
On fire since a decent quarterly earnings report in which Cisco revenues rose by 7% and forecast 3 to 5% growth next quarter, the company CEO John Chambers was hugely confident Continue reading

Plexxi Pulse – Big Data is Driving Datacenter Infrastructure Development

You may have seen last week that we partnered with Cloudera, certifying the Plexxi Switch on Cloudera’s Enterprise 5 platform.

This partnership, while exciting for us and our partners, plays a larger role in the IT landscape as a whole. According to an article this week by Arthur Cole of Enterprise Networking Planet, this move embodies Cole’s belief that networking infrastructure development is increasingly being driven by Big Data applications. He cites the key challenge as not finding somewhere to store all the data (e.g. storage) but rather how to make it available to “diverse and disparate sets of resources quickly and at a relatively low cost.”

He closes out with his piece by admitting that there’s still progress to be made with this technology. Nevertheless, we’re proud to be leading the charge.

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Enjoy!

InformationAge: Converged infrastructure: a networking panacea or just another nice idea?

By Ben Rossi

It’s a real-time, data-heavy, multimedia world. Legacy networks with their siloed environments are simply not designed to deliver today’s enterprise demands, which are focused more and more on delivering applications Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Partnering with Cloudera

This week, we announced that we’ve partnered with Big Data platform provider Cloudera. Cloudera’s data management platform enables enterprises to use Apache’s open source Hadoop software to better manage their data. The Plexxi Switch, now certified with Cloudera’s Enterprise 5 platform, is the first SDN-based Ethernet switch and the only truly single-tier, scale-out networking solution. We’re excited to have Cloudera on board to provide network operators a solution to address their Big Data needs.

Below you will find our top picks for stories in the networking space this week. Have a great weekend!

In this week’s PlexxiTube of the week, our own Dan Backman identifies how Plexxi’s Big Data fabric solution applicable beyond Big Data.

TechTarget: SDN to support Internet of Things devices
By David Geer
Software-defined networking will meet the Internet of Things (IoT) at the crossroads of VPN exhaustion, uptime challenges and limited network resources. The expected result is that SDN will help drive the expansion of IoT-enabled devices, enable more efficient network resource sharing and improve IoT service-level agreements (SLAs). In return, many vendors expect IoT will support SDN decisions and feed hungry policy engines. It’s still early days in terms of looking for use cases Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Interested in joining our team?

If you’ve been following our blog and/or keeping up with Plexxi on social media, you may have noticed that there is a lot going on here. We recently introduced new product starter kits, began construction on our new office expansion, are working on some exciting projects, and have grown by 20 percent in the past two months. Are you interested in being a part of the Plexxi team? If so, we would love to hear from you. Check out our careers page for more information.

Below you will find our top picks for stories in the networking space this week. Have a great weekend!

In this week’s PlexxiTube video of the week, Dan Backman explains how Plexxi’s datacenter transport fabric works with optical transport gear.

Light Reading: New Plexxi Chief Makes His Mark
By Mitch Wagner
As he enters his third month in the big chair, new Plexxi CEO Rich Napolitano is retooling the company’s messaging to focus more on the benefits of software networks — using Plexxi technology, of course — and less on the abstract benefits of SDN. Napolitano took over as CEO in November after 30 years in the technology industry, most recently at EMC Continue reading

Plexxi Pulse—Networking Predictions: 2015 Edition

Happy New Year! The year is off to a great start and we are excited to see what 2015 will bring to the networking space. I have a few predictions of my own (think policy and disaggregation) that were recently published in Network World. What are your networking predictions for 2015? Below are our top picks for networking stories this week.

In this week’s PlexxiTube #FBF (Flashback Friday) video of the week, Dan Backman interviews VMworld 2014 attendees and asks what they’ve done to help their networks accommodate to Big Data.

Network World: SDN, data center predictions for 2015
By Jim Duffy
The predictions for data center and SDN in 2015 are still rolling in. Technology Business Research says software will pervade the data center while start-up Plexxi believes policy and disaggregation will be front and center. Here’s the link to TBR’s 2015 Data Center Predictions. Some of the more interesting prognostications in it are the acceleration of SDN in the enterprise and the ability of hyperconvergence to converge.

Network Computing: 10 SDN Startups On The Cutting Edge
By Marcia Savage
Small companies flush with VC money have led the way in software-defined networking. Here are 10 of the hottest Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Networking For Agile Datacenters, Distributed Cloud Environments and Big Data Applications

This week, we announced new product starter kits that will make it easier for companies to adopt software-defined networking in a way that fits their unique networking environments. The kits are designed for three distinct uses — agile datacenters, distributed cloud environments and Big Data applications — avoiding the “one-size-fits-all” starter kit approach of some other vendors. Visit our product page to learn more. Below are our top picks for networking stories this week.

In this week’s PlexxiTube of the week, Dan Backman discusses the benefits of Plexxi’s Big Data fabric beyond Hadoop applications.

eWEEK: Plexxi Launches SDN Starter Kits for Cloud, Big Data
By Jeff Burt
Plexxi officials want to make it easier for organizations to adopt software-defined networking. Plexxi, a startup in the increasingly crowded software-defined networking (SDN) space, is unveiling three starter kits aimed at agile data centers, cloud environments and big data applications. Company officials said the goal of the starter kits is to give businesses and service providers the tools they need to deploy SDN infrastructures that are tailored to their particular workloads, avoiding what they said is a more one-size-fits-all approach that other vendors are taking.

TechTarget: Networking pros describe their 2015 SDN projects
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PlexxiPulse—Reflections in Networking

2014 was a busy year in networking, and our friend Marcia Savage did a great job of summarizing the industry highs and lows – from ACI to white box switches – this week in a slideshow for Network Computing. It’s definitely worth a read before you head out for the weekend. Check out Marcia’s year end wrap up below as well as other happenings in the networking space this week.

In this week’s PlexxiTube video of the week, Dan Bachman explains how Plexxi incorporates optical transport into datacenter transport fabrics.

Computer Weekly: Cisco is missing the transition to software-defined networks
By Alex Scroxton
Little doubt remains that the future of networking will be defined by software, but market-watchers warn Cisco is missing this move. Cisco’s hardware forms the backbone of most enterprise networks around the world. But this world is changing and many buyers no longer see compute, storage and networking as distinct silos… Software-defined networking (SDN) company Plexxi, which recently appointed former EMC executive Richard Napolitano as its CEO, is one such company looking at the networking industry’s transition from networking towards an application and data-focused world. “We stand today at a transition point in the IT landscape,” says Continue reading