A new networking startup has launched a solution that could solve some of 2012’s biggest networking challenges – virtualization and resource management.

The startup has been raising many eyebrows in Silicon Valley, and has even attracted investment from one of VMware’s founders.

Nicira’s Network Virtualization Platform (NVP) is already used by eBay, NTT, AT&T and Rackspace. It is a software based system that can create distributed virtual network infrastructure for cloud data centers.

It said service delivery acceleration can be realized in minutes using NVP, instead of week because the solutions is “completely decoupled and independent from physical network hardware”.

Virtualization of the network had put forward as one of the big challenges for 2012 by VMware, HP and other vendors concerned with growing amounts of data and increasing complexity in the data center.

NVP essentially offers a platform that provides the operational model of a virtual machine for the network.

“While applications have been decoupled from servers through compute virtualization, they have not yet been decoupled from the network through any type of scalable network virtualization,2 Nicira said. “As a result, virtualized data centers face limits to what applications they can support and where the workloads can be placed.”

AT&T is working with Nicira to deliver enterprise-grade scalable network virtualization in its internal OpenStack deployment, according to AT&T AVP of Cloud Architecture Toby Ford.

“Nicira’s technologies supports our work to open the network for innovation and unlock numerous, differentiated offers such as the AT&T API Delivery Platform, the AT&T Developer Center ForHealth and other services we’ll be building for developers and businesses,” Ford said.

Nicira CEO Stephan Mullaney has so far attracted investment in the product from VMware cofounder Dian Greene, and US$50m from Andreessen Horowitch Lightspeed Ventures and New Enterprise Associates.

“Network virtualization is the biggest challenge to networking in 25 years,” Mullaney said.

“NVP provides the final pivotal piece to cloud computing, the most transformational change to IT in a generation. And the largest most forward thinking cloud providers are laser-focused on operations and economics, the two benefits Nicira delivers.”

Mullaney said by supporting where workloads are placed, the tool can have a dramatic effect on server utilization.

He said it can be used with any data center hardware, being placed at the network edge, forming a thin software layer that can treat the physical network as an IP backplane.

By doing this, virtual networks can be created supporting VM mobility anywhere within or between data centers.

The solution is delivered on a usage-based monthly subscription pricing model.

Nicira was developed by network research leaders Martin Casado and Nick McKeown from Stanford University and University of California Berkeley researcher Scott Shennker.

In recent times vendors have been working closely with researchers at these universities to overcome challenges to the network, including those seen with the software-defined network. To read about this trend, click here.