PlexxiPulse—Join Our Webinar Series

Thanks to hyperconvergence and virtualization, storage and compute have rapidly evolved over the last decade. Conversely, network architectures have remained virtually unchanged. Here at Plexxi, we believe it’s networking’s turn to innovate through consolidation and convergence. On August 27 from 2:00-3:30 p.m. EST, we’ll be hosting a webinar on how the network can finally keep pace with storage and compute. We’ll take thirty minutes to discuss application centric networking, convergence and how to optimize networks for east/west traffic. You can register here, we hope you can make it.

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

Tech.co: What Converged Infrastructure Means for Today’s Businesses
By Rick Delgado
Many organizations are currently undergoing a significant shift in how they operate, particular when it comes to IT departments. The idea is to slowly but surely move away from the traditional data center technologies that have been in use for years. With the traditional data center, operations have gotten quite complex and require expert IT personnel to keep up with the ever increasing workload. The complicated infrastructure and large teams simply weren’t compatible with business goals in many ways, which Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—CRN’s Top 100

This week, CRN named Rich Napolitano to their Top 100 list of the IT industry’s foremost channel leaders. The annual list recognizes the efforts of agile decision-makers who play an integral role in evolving the way the channel does business. CRN selects leaders that represent the pre-eminent innovators, influencers, disrupters and channel sales leaders in the IT channel today.

Our solutions enable success in the next era of IT as virtualization, hyperconvergence, Big Data and scale-out applications and with Rich’s guidance we are working with great partners to bring our solutions to the market. Congratulations to all of the leaders named to this year’s CRN® Top 100 list.

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

SearchITChannel: Is bimodal IT the future of the channel?
By John Moore
CHICAGO — In CIO circles, bimodal IT has been a conversation starter: How can an enterprise’s information leadership balance the necessity of keeping the lights on against the challenge of adopting emerging, business-changing technologies? That same discussion is now surfacing in the channel. Speakers at this week’s CompTIA ChannelCon 2015 here suggested the possibility of partners becoming bimodal and the Continue reading

CEO Rich Napolitano Named to the 2015 CRN Top 100 Executives List

We’re thrilled that CEO, Rich Napolitano has been named to CRN®’s Top 100 list of the IT industry’s foremost channel leaders. CRN’s annual list recognizes the efforts of agile decision-makers who play an integral role in evolving the way the channel does business. These 100 leaders, picked by the CRN editorial staff, represent the pre-eminent innovators, influencers, disrupters and channel sales leaders in the IT channel today.

Rich has been at the helm of Plexxi since November 2014. He brought with him a simple formula to success: bring high quality and disruptive products to market through partners that are looking to carve a new path in the market. With channel partners like CloudGov Technologies and Arrow Electronics, Plexxi is bringing this vision to the market and ushering in the next era of IT.

CRN also named Plexxi a 2015 Emerging Vendor, and reporter Michael Novinson recently spoke exclusively with Rich about our newly announced channel distribution agreement with Arrow Electronics and how this helps move the industry further faster.

“We are at a major transition point and opportunity in the IT landscape. This transformation will not only upend the networking industry as we know but will transform the Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Partnering with Arrow

This week, we announced today an exclusive distribution agreement with one of the largest and most innovative distributors in the industry, Arrow Electronics. Under this agreement, Arrow’s Enterprise Computing Business will become the sole distributor of our next-generation networking products and solutions for scale-out applications, agile datacenters and distributed cloud environments. This agreement represents a joint vision that a new generation of Third Platform applications (IoT, Big Data, social, mobile and distributed apps) demand a new software-defined infrastructure to meet the demands for scale-out, virtualized computing. If you’re interested in learning more about our partnership with Arrow, take a look at the CRN Exclusive article on this announcement.

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

eWEEK: Enterprise Cloud Economy Booming, Driven by Big Data
By Nathan Eddy
The SteelBrick report analyzes how enterprise companies are selling to customers and also examines B2B selling trends compared to this time last year. The market for enterprise technology products is booming, with 72 percent of high-technology providers reporting growth in sales quote volumes, and 42 percent reporting accelerating sales cycles, according to a report from SteelBrick. The report analyzes Continue reading

Plexxi and Arrow Electronics Announce Distribution Agreement

To read the CRN Exclusive article on this announcement, please go here.

At Plexxi, we believe every network will be re-architected, not just upgraded to meet the needs of the changing IT application landscape. Seizing this opportunity requires more than great technology, you need strategic partners aligned and committed to this vision. Our partnership with Arrow Electronics

provides a game changing opportunity for Plexxi to deliver value to our partners and customers as we scale our business.

We’re pleased to announce today an exclusive distribution agreement with Arrow Electronics. Under this agreement, Arrow’s Enterprise Computing Business will become the sole distributor of our next-generation networking products and solutions for scale-out applications, agile datacenters and distributed cloud environments.

We are excited to have Arrow distribute Plexxi products and services to help accelerate the growth of our channel in the United States and Canada. This agreement opens the door to the next great era of IT for businesses to leverage and gain significant efficiencies and market growth.

Arrow is the perfect partner for this agreement. Aside from being one of the largest and most efficient distributors in the industry, the company prides itself on being forward thinking and innovative.

In their own Continue reading

The Next Generation Agile Data Center and the Birth of A Dynamic Network

At Plexxi we’re building a simply better network for the next era of IT to deliver agile data centers, enable scale-out applications and support distributed Cloud deployments.  In my prior blog, I discussed why the decades-old practice of pre-architecting, designing and implementing static network infrastructures wouldn’t support the dynamic needs of organizations moving forward. In this installment of my blog, I will review a case study from a large enterprise deploying an agile data center to meet their needs for the next generation.

I continue to spend a lot of time on the road, and I enjoy meeting with customers to make sure I stay on top of next generation data center networking requirements.  I recently visited a large enterprise that was experiencing scalability, management and performance problems with their existing data center network.  As the number of virtualized applications and corresponding virtual machines (VMs) grew in their data center, agility was actually decreasing rather than improving.  The data center was harder to manage due to application mobility and a lack of unified visibility across their virtual and physical environments.  In addition, their oversubscribed switches were experiencing capacity and buffering problems, caused in large part Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Disrupting The IT Channel

We’re honored that CRN has included Plexxi in this year’s 2015 Emerging Vendors List, an annual list that features up-and-coming technology vendors that have launched innovative new products that generate opportunities within the channel. Our team believes that the next generation of IT is upon us and we are honored to be recognized for our innovative solutions for the next generation of IT. To learn more about our predictions for what’s next in IT, take a look at this recent blog post by Bob Noel, Director of Solutions Marketing here at Plexxi.

We are continuing to partner with forward thinking channel partners to carve a new path in the market and to make our solutions widely accessible. Thank you to CRN for the distinction and congratulations to all of this year’s Emerging Vendors!

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

Forbes: Big Data Will Select Your Next Strategic Partner
By Christine Crandall
In an increasingly competitive but cost conscious world businesses are always looking for new ways to gain competitive advantages and revenue streams.  Businesses are likely to be more successful in achieving their goals if they Continue reading

Plexxi Named A CRN 2015 Emerging Vendor

This week, Plexxi has been named to CRN’s 2015 Emerging Vendors List. The annual list features up-and-coming technology vendors that have introduced innovative new products that generate opportunities for their channel partners to create high-margin, cutting-edge solutions for their customers. This year’s vendors recognized have demonstrated a commitment to developing new technologies to satisfy the shifting IT market and to meet growing industry demands.

Plexxi partners like CloudGov Technologies have been a huge part of the company’s growth and success. Why? Because we have a simple formula: great products, aimed at a game changing opportunity brought to market by partners that are looking to carve a new path in the market.

In addition to today’s Emerging Vendors list, CRN reporter Mark Haranas recently included Plexxi in his list of the “The 10 Coolest Networking Startups Of 2015” on the heels of the launch of our new network switch series. Our CEO, Rich Napolitano spoke exclusively with Haranas just last week about the new Switch 2 Series and his predictions for the next era of IT.

“We are entering the next great era of IT which will transform the datacenter as we know it. We envision an entirely Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Switches for Next Generation Networks

The next era of IT is being forged by the evolution of virtualization, hyperconvergence, Big Data and scale-out applications. Here at Plexxi, we’re developing technology to ensure our customers are ready for that evolution. This week, we announced the launch of our new Switch 2 Series, which emphasizes applications over infrastructure. Switch 2 consolidates the network into a single tier, optimized for east/west application traffic, while eliminating the need for multiple switch types found in traditional leaf/spine architectures.

Our technology allows enterprises and government agencies to move beyond the static networks of the past to create the industry’s first converged, agile and dynamic offering for third platform networks. Utilization of our switches lowers CapEx and OpEx, reduces network complexity, improves security and increases productivity, all critical characteristics of networks needed to support unprecedented amounts of data. Our own Director of Solutions Marketing, Bob Noel, blogged about the launch and its importance to the industry and how it relates to Plexxi’s vision earlier this week. Check out just some of the coverage of our announcement and its impact on the industry below.

Have a great weekend!

CRN: CRN Exclusive: Plexxi CEO Talks New ‘Next Era Converged Network’ Switch, Major Revenue Continue reading

Plexxi Announces New Network Switch Series to Power the Next Era of IT

Its not very often that something comes along that has the potential to be transformative through a new and truly differentiated approach. With Plexxi’s announcement this morning of our new Switch 2 Series , coupled with Plexxi Control and Plexxi Connect, we’re making strides to change the way networks function to support the business. Based on the needs of individual data and application workloads, the Switch 2 Series uses the innovation of Plexxi Control to dynamically change fabric topology in real time, intelligently forwarding traffic and delivering needed network capacity.

The next era of IT is being forged by the evolution of virtualization, hyperconvergence, Big Data and scale-out applications. Storage and compute have rapidly evolved over the last decade to keep pace but networking architectures have remained relatively unchanged.

Here is the evolution of networking, as we see it:

Platform One:

The network has, for decades, been built in the same multi-tier (core, leaf/spine) approach making it static and defined by it’s physical cabling.  This architecture was perfectly suited for stationary users and non-mobile applications, which created predictable north/south traffic. The traditional approach for introducing new applications in platform 1 was to “pour” them into the static network, and then Continue reading

Plexxi Pulse – Bimodal IT: The future of network disruption?

Gartner refers to bimodal IT as “having two modes of IT, each designed to develop and deliver information- and technology-intensive services in its own way.”

If this week’s top articles are any indication, it’s certainly a topic that is at forefront everyone’s minds. We’ve especially been enjoying Kurt Marko’s series for Forbes. For some, bimodal is just another buzzword, but for others, it presents an entirely new way of approaching IT. It disrupts legacy IT, offering groundbreaking tactics for testing and rolling-out new technologies. No other area of IT needs this more than the network. As we’ve frequently discussed, storage and compute have evolved rapidly over the last decade, but networking has remained unchanged – despite huge shifts in the way we manage and move information. The articles below are certainly a good start to a lengthy discussion. Enjoy!

Forbes: Bimodal IT Doesn’t Mean Bipolar Organizations: The Path to IT Transformation

By Kurt Marko

Never underestimate a buzzword’s power to frame the discussion. As I recently discussed, the term bimodal IT has captured the imagination and polemical energy of technology commentators and like many IT discussions in the age of 140-character commentary, it often degenerates into polarized, all-or-nothing Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Happy 4th of July!

Wishing you a safe and happy Fourth of July from the entire team here at Plexxi. Enjoy the celebrations this weekend!

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

Network Computing: Why Hardware Still Counts In Networking
By Ethan Banks
As a host of the networking podcast Packet Pushers, I receive lots of interesting e-mail. Listeners tell us how we’re doing, share their knowledge, and voice opinions. One opinion that’s come up lately I will describe as an aversion to hardware. In the minds of some, software is king; code is a networking cure-all that will take us into the future. Chris Wahl, a fellow writer and engineer, told me he’s also heard this anti-hardware sentiment. “Did the bad ASIC hurt you?” he joked, as we tried to understand the software bias.

Network World: Can Converged Infrastructure Help IT Get Its Mojo Back?
By Colm Keegan
In “Star Wars Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back,” Yoda implores an impetuous Luke Skywalker to “unlearn what you have learned.” IT administrators who wish to stay relevant in a shadow IT universe, may want to heed the words of the legendary Jedi Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Our CEO on the next era of IT

The dynamics of IT are rapidly changing. Rich Napolitano joined Plexxi as CEO last November to help guide Plexxi into the next generation of IT. He is passionate about sharing his intentions to build next generation networks that support new forms of data and applications. This week, he identified the characteristics of third era networks in a piece for Enterprise Networking Planet and discussed how the network needs to evolve to keep pace with developments in storage and compute in a blog post. Be sure to give them a read to learn more about the third era of IT—Rich will continue to share his thoughts on the Plexxi blog in coming weeks. Stay tuned!

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

IT Business Edge: Five Trends Shaping the Future of IT
By Staff Writer
When we think about the future or even the present of IT, it’s easy to get caught up in the vendor, analyst and media new-technology buzzword frenzy. Words and phrases such as cloud, IoT (Internet of Things), AI (artificial intelligence), Big Data, bimodal IT, DevOps, wearables and the quantified self, the consumerization of IT, BYOD and Continue reading

The Next Era of IT

An Agile & Dynamic Network to Keep Pace With Applications, Compute & Storage

I have been on the road a lot lately meeting with customers, prospects, partners and investors and it has become clear to me that there is a very simple, but profound trend emerging in Information Technology. Today you hear a lot about Third Platform, Bimodal IT, Hyperconvergence and Software Defined ”X” (Networking, Storage, Data Center etc.). The discussions about these technologies are prevalent, but the question is why? Why these topics and why now? Why should we care about Third Platform, Bimodal IT, Hyperconvergence and SD”X”? The answer is simple; storage and compute have evolved to be highly dynamic, and the network itself now needs to keep pace.

Looking Back

Over the last 2 decades, data center architectures have traditionally been highly static from the perspective of both the application and the network. Designing a data center was a lengthy process of capacity planning and design, after which the network team built a data center network around physically redundant two-tier leaf/spine architectures. Depending on pre-planned growth models and expected product lifecycles, multiple chassis were typically used as the spine. Leaf switches, dual homed back to the spine, were Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—We’ve Been Busy!

PlexxiPulse—We’ve been busy in The District!

You may have seen that we announced our partnership with CloudGov Technologies last week, a leading IT provider servicing the government and commercial markets. We spent the week in Baltimore alongside our newest partner and PSSC Labs at the AFCEA Defensive Cyber Operations Symposium spreading the word on how third era solutions transform the agility and performance of federal networks. Next week, we’ll be in Washington, D.C. with CloudGov at the GEOINT 2015 Symposium. This is the first year that the Symposium is being held in the nation’s capital—we’re excited to share our vision with attendees and learn from the impressive list of conference speakers. Drop us a line on Twitter or at [email protected] if you’re in town and interested in chatting with the team or scheduling a live demo!

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

Forbes: Bimodal IT: A New Buzzword For Old Concepts Presents Teachable Moment
By Kurt Marko
IT analysts are like fashion designers, always searching for something new, even if that means recycling age-old concepts in new terminology. But like successful fashionistas, IT Continue reading

The Future of Networking – Demonstrated at the AFCEA Defensive Cyber Operations Symposium

Plexxi is excited to be participating at the AFCEA Defensive Cyber Operations Symposium June 16 – 18 at the Baltimore Convention Center with our partners CloudGov and PSSC Labs in booth# 7071!

For anyone attending the AFCEA show, be sure to stop by to see the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) where they will be doing an SDN Use Case Proof of Concept (POC) demonstration. Plexxi is honored to be a featured technology in this POC.

Some of the key points and functionality highlighted in the SDN Use Case Proof of Concept Presentations video below are:

• Automated provisioning
• Improved end-to-end management and services delivery
• Dynamic bandwidth reallocation and scheduling
• Less time connected in the “box”/VM
• Reduction in requirement for direct equipment access by personnel and management systems
• Control plane separation from data plane

See DISA’s full SDN POC video:

The demonstration pod featured at the AFCEA show (a subset demonstration of the full video shown above) highlights how a data center network, integrated with VMware, can increase agility, decrease costs and improve security. Through workflow integration, the data center network is configured through the simple process of creating virtual machines (VMs) in vSphere. Seamless mobility is supported across the entire Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Partnering with CloudGov Technologies

This week we announced our partnership with CloudGov Technologies, a third platform IT Solutions provider servicing the government and commercial markets. This partnership helps federal agencies address the increasing need for scalable, agile and distributed data center networks built for third platform computing workloads. As a result of this partnership, a large U.S. government agency recently deployed our solutions to automate the provisioning and deployment of more than 30,000 virtual desktops with minimal administration. The deployment significantly improves application user experience and performance by optimizing the flow of east-west traffic across its virtualized data center.

Interested in learning more? Drop us a line at [email protected] to schedule a demo or stop by booth #7071 at the AFCEA Defensive Cyber Operations Symposium from June 16-18 in Baltimore. We will be showcasing our third platform solution alongside CloudGov Technologies.

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

Fortune: 5 things that keep tech execs up at night
By Barb Darrow
Pity the poor soul at your company who is in charge of technology decisions. Whether that person is the CIO, the director of engineering, vice president of IT, or Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Have you heard of Bimodal IT?

The networking space is buzzing about “Bimodal IT.” Simply defined, Bimodal IT is the segmentation of application deployments into cloud (public and/or private). Ben Kepes of Forbes included the concept in a recent deep dive on enterprise IT in the cloud. The network underpinning bimodal initiatives is critical and as Kepes pointed out in his article, tough to achieve if operating a legacy network. Our own Director of Solutions Marketing, Bob Noel, agrees with Kepes and highlights the importance of scalable and agile networks in response to the piece: “Those left to run (Bimodal deployments) on the legacy infrastructure is a fantastic idea that unfortunately has an Achilles heel inhibiting success for the approach…Until there is a fundamental shift in networking, companies will struggle to support Bimodal IT.” What are your thoughts on bimodal IT? Do you agree with Kepes and Bob?

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

BetaBoston: New Hampshire tries to reclaim tech vibe
By Staff Writer
MANCHESTER, N.H. — In one corner, a guy was hunched over his laptop, working on a pitch for a smartphone app that would allow golfers to Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—The Open Networking Summit

In two weeks, we’ll be heading to Santa Clara, CA for the Open Networking Summit hosted in partnership with the Open Networking Foundation. Plexxi co-founder and EVP of products and technology Dave Husak is participating in the “Hot Startups & Investing: Building Business with Open Source–VC perspective” panel on June 16 at 2:00 p.m. PT at the Santa Clara Convention Center. The Open Networking Summit draws networking’s best and brightest, and we’re excited to learn from this year’s impressive lineup of speakers. Heading to the event? Let us know on Twitter or send us a note at [email protected]. See you there!

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

TechTarget: Converged vs. hyper-converged landscape: What does it mean?
By Dave Raffo
Confused by all the talk about converged vs. hyper-converged infrastructure in the data center and what it means to storage? If so, you are not alone. Consultant Scott Lowe laid out pros and cons of approaches to convergence and how they differ this week during the Modern Infrastructure Summit in Chicago. Lowe, founder and managing consultant of The 1610 Group, told conference attendees that the rise of convergence Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—A Visit From Networking Legend Dr. Doug Comer

It has been an exciting week here at Plexxi! Dr. Doug Comer spent the day with us on Wednesday learning about our products and new network architecture. Dr. Comer is an internationally recognized networking guru, widely known for his series of groundbreaking textbooks on computer networks, the Internet, computer operating systems and computer architecture (including the popular ‘Internetworking with TCP/IP’). He designed and implemented X25NET and Cypress networks as well as the Xinu operating system. He is currently a professor of computer science at Purdue University where he teaches courses on operating systems and computer networks. It was a pleasure having him at the Plexxi headquarters—we hope he learned as much from us as we did from him! Take a look at a few photos from his visit.

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

InfoWorld: 3 ways the data lake is actually not helping with IT agility
By Yves de Montcheuil
Loosely speaking, a data lake is the big data version of an operational data store, plus a network storage appliance, plus data processing/query engines, all combined — typically in a Hadoop cluster Continue reading