Brocade Communications Systems Inc. is buying Vyatta Inc. for an undisclosed sum to give it more capabilities in the software-defined networking field.

Keith Stewart, senior director of product management at Brocade, says that the deal, announced Monday, will enable the company to more quickly connect and segment virtual networks on a physical backbone, building on the software-defined networking (SDN) plan Brocade first laid out in May this year.

"The Vyatta acquisition gives us more capabilities in this area with software routing and a virtual firewall," says Stewart.

Such functionality can be used in both the public and enterprise spheres. For instance, Stewart says, a cloud-based service provider could use it to provision space for multiple tenants on a network. An enterprise customer, meanwhile, could use it to separate the financial department from the rest of their colleagues on the network.

This requires more than just tunneling, he notes; it needs software routing and security services as well.

Stewart says Brocade intends to keep the Vyatta brand and the team, which will report to Ken Cheng, VP of Brocade's routing, application delivery and software networking group. The acquisition is expected to close this calendar quarter.

You can see Cheng talk about the company's SDN strategy in the Brocade video below:

Why this matters
Stewart says that software routing services are becoming much more important in the SDN universe. "We think this is where the next set of innovations is going to come from, and Vyatta is the leader in this category," he tells Light Reading.

All the big OEMs are jockeying for position in SDN and virtualization, so this certainly won't be the last acquisition in this area.

For more

• Casting the Spotlight on SDN Startups
• 6 SDN Startups to Watch
• Cisco SDN Expert Leaves for Brocade
• Brocade Finds Another Use for Routers
• Brocade Sets an SDN Plan
• Cloud Infrastructure Startup Vyatta Grabs $12M

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Light Reading Mobile