Riverbed Technology has acquired Wi-Fi network provider, Xirrus, in a move to expand its software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and its cloud networking solutions, such as SteelConnect.
Following the merger, the company said its customers and partners can expect strengthened unified connectivity and policy-based orchestration, spanning the entire distributed network - WAN, LAN/WLAN, datacentre and the cloud.
Riverbed will also continue to offer Xirrus as a stand-alone enterprise WLAN solution.
“Together with Riverbed, we embrace a tremendous opportunity to create the world’s first SD-WAN solution that covers the core to the edge of the network,” Xirrus CEO, Shane Buckley, said.
“The integration of our solutions combine best-of-breed federated identity and application control with differentiated SD-WAN technology, addressing the stringent requirements of today’s cloud, mobile and digital world. We are thrilled to be part of the Riverbed family and continue to thrive in this fast-growing, critical market.”
Specifically for Riverbed chairman and CEO, Jerry M. Kennelly, the acquisition provides Riverbed an enterprise-grade Wi-Fi solution and enhances SteelConnect, which will further fuel the company’s growth in the market.
“In today’s digital, cloud, and mobile world, enterprise networks are more complex and unpredictable than ever before and IT is struggling to manage all of this,” he explained.
“A fundamental rethink to networking is required and with this acquisition, Riverbed and our partners are uniquely positioned to provide CIOs and businesses with a software-defined networking approach that delivers unified connectivity and orchestration across the entire network.”
Riverbed SteelConnect senior vice president, Paul O’Farrell, added that by blending Xirrus Wi-Fi and SteelConnects orchestration, the company is taking a step to bring the power of policy-based network management to the wireless edge.
“Legacy approaches to network management have become completely untenable,” he said.
“ IT must move beyond the days of managing individual network devices using arcane command-line interface (CLI) commands and scripts and instead move to software-defined approaches that are based on global policies, automation and orchestration.”
