HPE acquires SD-WAN company Silver Peak for $925 million

HPE snaps up Silver Peak to simplify SD-WAN deployment at the Edge

Enterprise IT giant HPE has acquired Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) company Silver Peak for a deal valued at $925 million.

Silver Peak will be combined with HPE’s Aruba Networks once the transaction is approved by regulators.

SD-WAN

SD-WAN allows system admins to configure complex networks with user-friendly software instead of modifying the network hardware itself.

The technology allows organisations to drastically cut networking costs by ensuring applications are dynamically routed through expensive or cheaper networks depending on traffic.

Silver Peak is one of the leading SD-WAN players with over 1,500 customers. Its so-called “self-driving” WAN automates networking configuration, a process it refines over time with machine learning.

HPE said the company’s technology will complement and strengthen HPE Aruba’s Edge Service Platform (ESP), by extending SD-WAN’s cost-efficiencies to branch offices and other Edge deployments.

“The need for edge-to-cloud architectures has never been more relevant as enterprises look to extend connectivity to branch locations and enable secure work-from-home experiences,” said Keerti Melkote, president of Intelligent Edge for Hewlett Packard Enterprise and founder of Aruba Networks.

“Silver Peak’s technology transforms legacy WAN architectures to self-driving WANs, which is a perfect fit with Aruba’s cloud-native, AI-driven Edge Services Platform. Together, we will be able to meet these needs with critical connectivity, security, and AI capabilities to drive the next generation of Edge-to-Cloud transformation.”

The deal comes just days after IDC warned a Covid-19 budget crunch had forced cash-strapped companies away from SD-WAN deployments towards other technologies like network management and collaboration tools.

IDC said yearly growth in the SD-WAN market had dropped from 40 percent through March to less than 1 percent in June.

“This been a period of retrenchment for many and we expect to get back rapid growth in 2021,” said Brad Casemore, research vice president, Datacenter Networks, IDC.

“All of the requirements – secure access to the cloud and cloud access optimization are still there and will continue to grow,” he added.

In 2018 HPE announced a four-year strategic plan to invest $4 billion in the “Intelligent Edge”, which effectively involves finding new ways to help businesses easily transfer data from the edge to the cloud, where useful intelligence can then be derived from it.