I am not an expert on networking like some of my colleagues out there are but still I was intrigued by the Cumulus release Wednesday. I liked the whole decoupling hardware from software aspect and how they allow you to buy the switch you want and combine it with their software solution aka Cumulus Linux. I am not going in to much details, as that isn’t the title of this article or what triggered me to write this. (If you want to know more about Cumulus I suggest you read this article by Ben Kepes or hit their website.) What triggered this article was a quote in the Silicon Valley Business Journal which was taken from an article on the Wall Street Journal blog and it made me wonder, what is Diane Greene up to these days?
“They’re taking a lot of the cost out of the system…especially with people building larger and larger data centers,” said Greene, who said she needed a switch and a scalable data center for her own new project. “We invested because of the disruptive nature of the company, and it’s such a smart thing to do.”
For those who don’t know, Diane Greene was one of the founders and CEO of VMware from 1998 until 2008. She’s currently on the board of Google and Intuit, she has invested in companies like Cumulus, Cloudera, Typesafe, CloudPhysics, Nicira, Pure Storage, Rockmelt, Unity Technologies and Nimbula. An impressive track record indeed, but anyway… what stood out to me from this article is “she needed a switch and a scalable data center for her own new project“.
I have heard some rumors about the talent she is recruiting, and I guess time will tell what it is this new company is working on. It must be something big, exciting and challenging if Diane Greene decided to take it on herself. When I bump in to more details, you guys will be the first to know.