Nicira Virtualizes the Network for Offshore Cloud Specialist Calligo

Nicira, the network virtualization company, today announced that Calligo, a full-service cloud service provider based in the Channel Islands, has adopted Nicira’s Network Virtualization Platform (NVP) to support its customers in the offshore industries in the region. Calligo is using NVP to make two data centers – one in Jersey and one in Guernsey – operate as a single facility, with computing capabilities and applications utilizing the virtual and physical capabilities in either location.

Calligo is the latest addition to Nicira’s growing roster of elite global service providers and enterprise customers including AT&T, DreamHost, eBay, Fidelity Investments, Rackspace and NTT.

Calligo is hosting launch events for its new comprehensive set of cloud services on both Islands today, where it will share insight with offshore businesses into the benefits of cloud computing, including the operational resilience, flexibility and speed available through Calligo’s deployment of technologies such as NVP from Nicira.

“As the only complete cloud service provider in the Channel Islands, we founded Calligo specifically to meet the rigorous demands of offshore industries, like financial services, that congregate here. Nicira makes it possible for us to pool our computing resources, including networks, as one big pool of capacity, which radically simplifies our operations and reduces costs,” said Julian Box, CEO of Calligo.

While Calligo gains radical flexibility with its data centers, its customers experience the exact same high-performance and security as a conventional data center. Nicira supports total client network isolation, adhering to the Islands’ stringent jurisdictional regulations, while also offering customers application support and capabilities not available in traditional physical network environments.

Network virtualization removes the barriers common to traditional networks. It offers multi-tenant network scalability and security, flexibility of workload placement and mobility, and elimination of error-prone manual reconfiguration, all challenges faced by large-scale cloud operators. As a result, service providers can increase speed to market for new services and new revenues.

“Calligo represents a new breed of cloud service provider that is moving rapidly to seize new data center business opportunities. Nicira completely changes the economics for cloud providers, making it possible for companies like Calligo to run fast and efficient OpenStack and VMware based infrastructure at unprecedented levels of utilization while compromising nothing in terms of performance, security and application support,” said Alan Cohen, VP of Marketing for Nicira.

NVP is a scalable software system implemented at the network edge and managed by distributed clustered controller architecture. The system forms a thin software layer that treats the physical network as an IP backplane. This approach allows the creation of virtual networks that have the same properties and services as physical networks, such as security and QoS policies, L2 reachability, and higher-level service capabilities such as stateful firewalling. These virtual networks can be created dynamically to support VM mobility anywhere within or between data centers without service disruption or address changes.