Brocade Acquires Vyatta For Software Defined Networking

Brocade is to buy software defined networking specialist Vyatta in a bid to boost its strength in a field which promises to allow more flexible networks in data centres, cloud providers  and enterprise cores.

Brocade is paying cash for the start-up, which has a software defined networking (SDN) operating system, which can ease virtualisation on enterprise networks and in cloud providers. The price was not disclosed.

 Looking to software defined networking future

“This acquisition complements our R&D investments in Ethernet fabrics and SDN, as well as our broad industry and solutions-level partnerships that enable Brocade to pursue new market opportunities in data centre virtualisation, public cloud, enterprise virtual private cloud, and managed services,” said Mike Klayko, CEO of Brocade.

“We are now bolstering these ‘build and partner’ efforts with this strategic acquisition with the goal of being the innovation and thought leader in the software networking category.”

Vyatta started out with a goal of providing an open source network system that would allow cheap hardware such as x86 servers to take on the likes of Cisco and Brocade. Over time, the open source nature of the project became less important and its SDN approach is supposed to let  customers implement routing, security and VPN functions on demand, using the platform-independent Vyatta Network OS.

Brocade said it will use Vyatta technology to  extend its open data centre fabric and IP networking technologies directly into any hypervisor environment, so customers get more choice. The product will let customers develop networks and services more quickly, on virtualised  network infrastructure, Brocade says.

Following the acquisition, Vyatta will be under Brocade vice president Ken Cheng, who runs the software networking group, who said: “There are many significant developments happening today that are redefining data centre architectures and industry landscapes. The Vyatta acquisition brings in considerably more software networking technology and expertise to Brocade.”

“Brocade and Vyatta share the philosophy that open solutions and dynamic, agile networks are the best paths for customers to evolve their data centre architectures to meet their business goals,” said Kelly Herrell, CEO of Vyatta.

Speaking to TechWeekEurope earlier this year, he emphasised the OpenFlow standard for SDN, which Brocade supports.”OpenFlow is going to the standard and is undergoing a lot of development.”

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