Startup: Anuta Networks
What they do: Enable the delivery of network services in existing infrastructures; in other words, they deliver SDN functionality to legacy environments.
Headquarters: Milpitas, CA
CEO: Chandu Guntakala. Before founding Anuta Networks, Guntakala co-founded Jahi Networks, which was acquired by Cisco in 2004.
Founded: 2010
Funding: Currently self-funded.
What I like about them: The SDN space is taking off, but many SDN vendors are pitching forklift-upgrades to make everything work smoothly. Call it Vendor Lock 2.0, Software-Defined Edition.
Anuta, in contrast, provides a platform that is designed to work in heterogeneous environments. Anuta’s nCloudX platform “simplifies and automates the complete lifecycle of network services in complex, heterogeneous networks across multi-vendor, multi-hypervisor and multi-device environments, including physical and virtual infrastructures in both private and public cloud deployments.”
Anuta says that the solution reduces delivery time from weeks to a few hours for deploying multi-tenant networks and services. The company also argues that, as opposed to their datacenter-focused competitors, Anuta is able to help both enterprises and service providers, helping them bring SDN-fueled agility and efficiency to their existing infrastructures, without changing their environments.
What gives me pause: Two things. A lack of VC funding is always a cause for concern with startups, and I’m not certain the SDN market is the best place for startups to knock off incumbents. Yes, SDN makes sense, but what’s to stop established datacenter veterans like VMware and Cisco from dominating this space?
It didn’t take long for SDN to morph from “Cisco killer” to Cisco dominated, after all.
Competitive Landscape: Competitors include VMware (Nicira acquisition), PLUMgrid, and Big Switch Networks.
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