VMware introduced a new milestone on its roadmap toward a software-defined data center with Wednesday's announcement of VMware NSX, a forthcoming software package that combines its vCloud Network and Security product with Nicira's NVP. VMware acquired Nicira in July 2012 for more than $1 billion.

VMware NSX, which the company said will be available in the second half of this year, will create a network virtualization layer to run over an enterprise's physical data center network. The goal of network virtualization is to bring new levels of automation to network configuration, which will speed deployment of new applications. Network virtualization also enables the creation of programmatic interfaces that let third-party applications and services easily hook into the network.

As Hatem Naguid, VMware's VP of networking and security, wrote in a blog post, "With network virtualization, each application's virtual network and security topology is equally mobile and in lock-step with the fluid virtual compute layer, automated with APIs, and decoupled from custom/proprietary hardware."