SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- PlumGrid VP engineering (and amateur racecar driver) Lele Nardin has left the SDN company after less than two years to work on the railroad.

Lilee Systems, which makes communications systems for railroads, recently announced it was hiring Nardin.

Figure 1: Source: veggiefrog

Nardin left PlumGrid Inc. , which has developed virtual network infrastructure software for companies building cloud datacenters, around the New Year, as planned from the time he joined the company in 2012, said PlumGrid president and CEO Awais Nemat. Nardin signed on for a two-year hitch to bring discipline to the engineering process and ship PlumGrid's software-defined networking product, IO Visor, which launched last year. (See Plumgrid Launches SDN Overlay Platform.)

"He was here for two years and did the job of getting the company up and running," Nemat said in an interview at the company's offices.

Nardin continues to advise PlumGrid, Nemat said.

PlumGrid has selected a successor for Nardin and will announce the choice in the second quarter, Nemat said.

SDN is one of a number of key topics that will feature at The Big Telecom Event (BTE), June 17/18 at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers.

Nardin was previously senior VP engineering at Ericsson Silicon Valley. Before that he worked at Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) for 15 years, starting as a software engineer and serving as VP and general manager since 2000, according to a statement from PlumGrid when it announced Nardin's signing on.

The PlumGrid statement adds that "Nardin earned a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications Systems from the University of Padova, Italy, and is an amateur racecar driver." (See? I wasn't making that part up about the driving.)

I left messages with Lilee Systems and Nardin. If I hear anything interesting from them, I'll let you know in the comments below.

— Mitch Wagner, , West Coast Bureau Chief, Light Reading.
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