Brocade adds virtual routing capabilities with Vyatta buy

Contact: Ben Kolada

To add virtual networking to its storage portfolio, Brocade announced on Monday the all-cash acquisition of software-based virtual routing vendor Vyatta. The deal announcement reads as a tech and talent tuck-in, though it does also provide access to several Vyatta customers that are already implementing virtual networking.

Vyatta provides network routing, load balancing, address management, quality assurance, monitoring, administration and debugging software and hardware for businesses globally. Its software is used to manage both physical and virtual networks. The company started out with a virtual networking product with not only open APIs, but also open source software (Vyatta means ‘open’ in Sanskrit).

Brocade explained that the rationale for the deal was to complement its R&D investments in Ethernet fabrics and software-defined networking. But the enterprise networking and storage provider could also use Vyatta’s foothold in the virtual world to anchor its next steps. With the Vyatta buy, Brocade gains access to a set of customers that are already well along in their virtual networking implementations.

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