Cisco to acquire SD-WAN company Viptela
Tue 2 May 2017
Cisco has announced its intent to acquire Viptela, a Silicon Valley company that specializes in software-defined wide area networks (SD-WAN) in the cloud. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of this year and will cost Cisco $610 million USD in cash and equity awards.
Viptela’s cloud-native SD-WAN product will expand Cisco’s SD-WAN service offerings, allowing the company to accelerate its own SD-WAN solutions with a solution that was created specifically to function in cloud-based networks. Viptela’s technology will help Cisco customers connect geographically diverse branches in the cloud, while lowering costs and improving security.
The Viptela SD-WAN solution also incorporates a client dashboard that monitors the client network in real time, allowing customers to optimize network speed and efficiency by responding to changes in traffic and system demands.
Cisco intends to combine Viptela’s cloud-first technology with Cisco routers, services, and Cisco IWAN and Meraki SD-WAN solutions. Cisco’s IWAN, or Intelligent Wide Area Network, provides customers with on-premises SD-WAN that incorporates advanced routing features. The Meraki SD-WAN is cloud-based, with a focus on simplicity and threat management.
Viptela’s technology will add to the Cisco cloud SD-WAN portfolio by providing a single platform solution combining SD-WAN, cloud, Network-as-a-Service and applications delivered by the cloud and scalable to client requirements.
Scott Harrell, senior vice president of product management for Cisco Enterprise Networking, noted that the simplicity and ease of deployment of the Viptela cloud-first platform are in high demand from enterprise customers. “With Viptela and Cisco, we will be able to deliver a comprehensive portfolio of comprehensive on-premises, hybrid, and cloud-based SD-WAN solutions,” he said.
The acquisition of Viptela marks Cisco’s second of 2017, after the $3.7 billion USD AppDynamics acquisition that closed in March. It also marks the fifth major acquisition announced in the last 12 months, and the ninth since early 2016, all part of an aggressive strategy of acquisition to reshape Cisco.
Both Viptela and AppDynamics are part of Cisco’s strategic transition from a hardware company to a software provider with recurring customer revenues. It is also expected to support the Cisco’s Digital Network Architecture (DNA) strategy, to create flexible and dynamic networks that are ‘simple, automated, intelligent and secure.’
