This month’s article brings you an amazing story from an extraordinary entrepreneur, Martin Casado, Co-Founder and CTO of Nicira. Martin turned his Ph.D. research into creating a startup that not only pioneered the current trend in software defined networking but also, turned his company into a leader in network virtualization for open source initiatives. He and his team used his research at Stanford University for developing cutting edge technology for network virtualization revolution in data center and cloud networking. VMware acquired Nicira in middle of last year for approximately $1.05 billion in cash plus approximately $210 million of assumed unvested equity awards.


Today, Nicira is at the forefront of software-defined networking, which enables the dynamic creation of virtual network infrastructure and services that are completely decoupled and independent from the physical network hardware. Many industry leaders, including AT&T, DreamHost, eBay, Fidelity Investments, NTT and Rackspace are using the Nicira Network Virtualization Platform (NVP) to accelerate service delivery from weeks to minutes and dramatically reduce complexity and cost. Nicira helps customers dramatically improve business velocity and efficiency by transforming how networking works in the Cloud era and the value to customers lies in their open approach and the richness of capabilities in network virtualization.


Prior to Nicira, Martin co-founded Illuminics Systems, an IP analytics company, which was acquired by Quova Inc. in 2006. Prior to attending Stanford, Martin held a research position at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where he worked on network security in the information operations assurance center (IOAC). With special gratitude to him, here are four key take away (4KTA) points from his amazing and unique entrepreneurial journey based on my discussions with him recently.
1. Clear Direction – One of the early lessons I learnt was from our CEO Steve Mullaney, who used to quote, “Where you are.