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One thing Plexxi doesn’t do is move virtual machines. In VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) verbiage, Plexxi doesn’t initiate vSphere vMotions. What it will do is react to a vMotion action by making sure the application keeps getting what it needs from the network.

The eerie part is that Plexxi can do this without any knowledge of the applications themselves. Its software can look at traffic flows and draw its own conclusions — dishing unused bandwidth to an application that looks like it needs it, for instance. But apps that explicitly request things from the software — apps that explain the affinities they want — would get first dibs on altering the DWDM network, Mathews says.

Plexxi’s switches communicate with each other through an agent that’s similar to OpenFlow but includes control of the physical layer. Plexxi doesn’t have plans to offer OpenFlow in place of that agent, but the company could work with OpenFlow networks by opening up an API to an OpenFlow controller, Mathews says. In that way, Plexxi could interoperate with the non-Plexxi majority of the data center.