Brocade to snap up Riverbed’s SteelApp biz in NFV play

Storage and networking tech vendor Brocade has signalled its intent to acquire Riverbed Technology’s SteelApp portfolio, which includes a virtualized application delivery controller for cloud-based applications.

In recent years Riverbed has pitched its virtualised ADC as a suitable solutions for delivering automated network and security control features for Azure, Cisco and AWS workloads amongst those deployed on other cloud platforms, and the move will see Brocade acquire the assets of the SteelApp business unit, with SteelApp development personnel joining Brocade after closing.

“The decision to divest the SteelApp product line reflects Riverbed’s ongoing commitment to focus on businesses and opportunities that leverage our core competencies,” said Jerry M. Kennelly, chairman and chief executive of Riverbed Technology.

“Riverbed is focused on providing solutions that provide CIOs unparalleled visibility, optimization, and control in the hybrid enterprise, ensuring on-premises, cloud and SaaS applications perform as needed,” Kennelly said.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Lloyd Carney, chief executive officer of Brocade said: “Brocade continues to execute aggressively to capitalize on the disruptive force of software in IP networking. Brocade is the #2 datacentre networking vendor worldwide; this acquisition strengthens Brocade’s unique position as the adoption of software-centric networking is accelerating. We are thrilled to add SteelApp’s widely-adopted solution to our portfolio and will invest our existing ADC resources to aggressively advance the roadmap and extend it into our open Vyatta Platform offering for NFV and SDN.”

Brocade, which has a huge share in the storage fabric market and is currently pushing hard into networking (including SDN), said the acquisition will bolster the company’s expertise in NFV technology, where other large networking incumbents are currently focusing their attention (even Samsung Electronics is getting in on the action, it would seem).

That said, the move follows other virtualised networking-focused acquisitions Brocade made in the space in recent years. In 2012 the company bought virtual routing and firewall provider Vyatta and last year bought virtualised network monitoring tool vendor Vistapointe.