vCider Announces the Industry's First On-Demand Distributed Virtual Switch for Cloud Computing

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Jun 22, 2011) - GIGAOM STRUCTURE CONFERENCE -- vCider, Inc., a provider of on-demand virtual network solutions, today announced the availability of a free public beta release of its virtual switch for the cloud. The vCider solution enables cloud-computing users to build virtual networks that stretch across data centers, cloud providers, and cloud provider availability zones. Using the vCider virtual switch, organizations can connect their cloud infrastructure as though it were all on a single LAN, even when the systems are distributed across data centers and service providers. Systems on vCider virtual networks communicate using virtual addresses, which are separate and independent from the physical network to which they are attached.

Through its secure Network-as-a-Service offering, vCider makes it easier for organizations to deploy conventional enterprise applications to the cloud. These applications frequently require network capabilities that are unavailable from Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers. Private addresses, subnets, multiple interfaces, and IP failover are among the many common networking techniques that vCider enables, allowing an entirely new class of applications to be considered for deployment to the cloud.

The vCider virtual switch delivers these features on networks that span data centers and IaaS providers. For example, cloud applications using vCider can build virtual networks that span Amazon and Rackspace data centers. With vCider, users now have unprecedented flexibility and control over how their systems are deployed and how they communicate in the cloud.

"I want the cloud to work like my LAN, and vCider makes that possible," said Greg Elkinbard, senior director of Mirantis. "Without a LAN-like network environment, it's much more difficult to deploy my applications to the cloud. Rather than investing time and money to develop network workarounds, cloud users can simply use the vCider switch to extend their LAN environment into the cloud."

"Cloud computing has made tremendous strides, but the difficulties of running complex applications on a network that they do not control is limiting application migration to the cloud," said Chris Marino, CEO of vCider, Inc. "Because certain enterprise networking techniques that on-premise applications have relied upon for many years are unavailable in the cloud, many applications were trapped in the datacenter. The vCider virtual switch enables organizations to build their own virtual network that brings these techniques to the cloud in a network that the user can control themselves."

The vCider on-demand virtual switch includes a cloud-based management console, along with a small driver to be installed on all nodes participating in the virtual network. Users configure the service through the console much as they would configure a traditional top-of-rack network switch in the datacenter.

The vCider service is now available in a public beta release. A 16 port virtual switch is available free of charge, with larger configurations priced on a fixed fee per month basis.

To sign up for the beta release or to learn more about vCider, please visit www.vcider.com.

About vCider
vCider, Inc., a privately held company based in Silicon Valley, is developing on-demand virtual networking solutions to bring greater control, flexibility, availability, and security to cloud computing. The company's on-demand virtual switch enables cloud-computing users to build virtual networks that stretch across data centers, cloud providers, and cloud provider availability zones. The vCider virtual switch is available in a public beta version. vCider is led by a team and backed by investors who have previously launched category-defining products companies in the areas of application management and networking. For more information, visit www.vcider.com.

vCider and the vCider logo are trademarks of vCider, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.