VMware Vet Howie Xu Joins Big Switch Networks As VP Of Engineering

Big Switch Networks, an OpenFlow company bringing the benefits of virtualization and cloud architecture to enterprise networks, today announced that Howie Xu has joined the company to lead the R&D organization.

Xu was at VMware for nine years before joining Big Switch Networks.

He led VMware’s networking R&D team for the past five years and, under his leadership, the team innovated and developed the industry’s first Distributed Virtual Switch and collaborated with Cisco on Nexus 1000V.

He joined VMware in 2002 as one of the lead developers in virtual networking. He is credited with co-inventing VMware’s Virtual Switch and holds multiple patents in this area.

Big Switch Network’s technical staff has doubled in size this year. More than 70 percent of the team has at least one graduate degree in CS; 50 percent of the team are former distinguished engineers, principal engineers, senior staff engineers or faculty from leading universities.

The company is continuing to hire and recently moved into its new corporate headquarters in Palo Alto.