Cisco buys Viptela for $610 million to beef up its SD-WAN portfolio

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Cisco has announced its intent to acquire Viptela, a privately held SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) company for $610 million in cash and assumed equity awards, which will expand Cisco’s SD-WAN portfolio with increased functionality and simplicity delivered through the cloud.

Managing the network is becoming more complex as applications move to the cloud, employees become more mobile and billions of IoT devices are added to the network. For businesses, this means how branch offices are connected must evolve. Customers are turning to SD-WAN solutions to help manage and orchestrate their WAN deployments, to cost effectively improve access to both the cloud and their corporate network.

Cisco says Viptela provides an SD-WAN solution that simplifies management, increases agility and reduces costs of interconnecting dispersed enterprise networks. Its network management, orchestration and overlay technologies make it easy to deploy and manage SD-WAN.

Cisco says this “cloud-first” approach aligns with its Digital Network Architecture (DNA) transition to software-driven, automated networks that are more flexible, responsive and dynamic.

“Viptela’s technology is cloud-first, with a focus on simplicity and ease of deployment while simultaneously providing a rich set of capabilities and scale. These principles are what today’s customers demand,” said Scott Harrell, senior vice president of product management for the Cisco Enterprise Networking Group. “With Viptela and Cisco, we will be able to deliver a comprehensive portfolio of comprehensive on-premises, hybrid, and cloud-based SD-WAN solutions.”

With the Viptela purchase, Cisco will be able to accelerate the path to developing next generation SD-WAN solutions, by combining Viptela’s network management, orchestration and overlay technologies with Cisco’s routing platforms, services, and SD-WAN capabilities. Cisco says it is committed to Viptela’s product offering and architecture as well as Cisco’s existing Intelligent WAN (IWAN) and Meraki SD-WAN solutions. The acquisition of Viptela also supports Cisco’s strategic transition toward software-centric solutions that deliver predictable, recurring revenue.

The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of calendar 2017, after having completed all of the customary closing conditions and regulatory review.

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