Startup Versa Bridges Data Center, WAN

Another group of former Juniper Networks (JNPR) executives have come together to form a startup networking company. Currently in stealth mode, Versa Networks is a venture-backed startup that hopes to bridge the gap between the data center and the wide area network (WAN) to build a complete virtual network spanning on-premise and cloud infrastructure.

Discovered by LightReading, it’s a little early to say much about how Versa Networks will fit into the growing software-defined networking (SDN) market. But what is currently known is that the new company is hoping to eliminate one of the networking boundaries to the cloud—that is, the requirement of switching between networks.

Instead, the vision of a single virtual network would make it seamless to go from on-premise to remote to cloud.

Backed by Sequoia Capital, which so far has invested $14.4 million in the new venture, Versa is led by two former Juniper Networks executives.

Kumar Mehta was mostly recently vice president of Engineering at Juniper. He joined Juniper in 2004 to lead the networking vendor’s entry into the metro and carrier Ethernet market, Mehta also led the engineering of the MX series of edge products, as well as the MobileNext product.

Apurva Mehta was CTO and chief architect for Juniper’s Mobility Business Unit, where he led the delivery of the Evolved Packet Core product line. Before that, he was the chief architect for the MX series.

Both received awards from Juniper Networks, so it’s safe to say they well-regarded within the walls of the vendor. And so with the two off doing their own thing now, it is likely they are missed for their engineering skills at Juniper.

With an eye toward transforming the network infrastructure market, this SDN startup could be one to watch, particularly as it gets closer to emerging from stealth mode. Stay tuned.