National Education Consortium Selects Pica8 Switches for OpenFlow-Driven, Software Defined Networking Research Projects

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pica8, Inc., the leader in open networking for software defined networks (SDN), today announced that The Quilt, the national coalition of advanced regional research and education (R&E) networks, has selected Pica8 open switches to support OpenFlow network research projects for its member universities.

“We are excited about our partnership with The Quilt because our solutions provide researchers a customizable network that highlights their group’s focus”

Pica8 leads the industry in OpenFlow switch development because it is the first company to deliver an open, hardware-independent switching platform. Pica8’s open switches are designed to work seamlessly with OpenFlow software-based controllers and virtual switches. Seamless integration and interoperability enables researchers and end users to easily deploy Pica8 switches in OpenFlow networks today.

“Pica8 is an innovator in OpenFlow-compliant switching, and that’s why we selected them as an Authorized Quilt Provider,” said Jen Leasure, president and CEO of The Quilt. “Pica8 is helping our members develop leading SDN networking solutions promised by OpenFlow.”

Pica8’s switches run on PicOS, an open, fully programmable OS that makes Linux accessible, while providing robust Layer 2 and 3 functions as well as OpenFlow. As such, Pica8 offers the world’s first open and complete Ethernet switch development environment and API.

“We are excited about our partnership with The Quilt because our solutions provide researchers a customizable network that highlights their group’s focus,” said Dean Au, vice president of business development at Pica8. “We make switching available as an application under OpenFlow, so users can immediately put an SDN framework to work.”

All of Pica8’s 1 GbE and 10 GbE OpenFlow-compliant switches are generally available today.

About The Quilt

The Quilt is the national coalition of advanced regional networks for research and education, representing 31 networks across the country. Participants in The Quilt provide advanced network services and applications to over 200 universities and thousands of other educational institutions. For more information, visit www.thequilt.net.

About Pica8, Inc.

Pica8 is fulfilling the promise of true software defined networking (SDN) by providing the world’s first open, hardware-independent switching operating system. Pica8 solutions completely transform the data center by decoupling hardware from software. This new approach provides greater flexibility and adaptability, all while driving down implementation- and management-related costs of cloud and virtualized applications. For more information, visit www.pica8.com.