Brocade has purchased California-based software-defined networking (SDN) company Vyatta, a pioneer in virtual routing, security and VPN in software networking.

Ken Cheng, Brocade’s VP and general manager for IP Products, said the all-cash transaction will enhance Brocade’s roadmap for SDN-enabled products.

“Their products and technologies enable customers to build agile, capacity-on-demand networks that can scale up dynamically as data center requirements increase,” Cheng said.

“With this innovation, network elements such as a router or firewall can become another virtualized resource, which can be orchestrated and deployed like any other data center resource, leveraging the economies of the x86 infrastructure.”

He said Vyatta creates the networking and security services needed between different pools of compute and storage “whether the pools were created by traditional network virtualization methods like VLANs or by newer methods like SDN”.

Brocade CEO Mike Klayko said Vyatta complements Brocade’s investments in Ethernet fabrics and SDN “as well as our broad industry and solutions-level partnerships that enable Brocade to pursue new market opportunities in data center virtualization, public cloud, enterprise virtual private cloud and managed services”.

“We are now bolstering these ‘build and partner’ efforts with this strategic acquisition with the goal of being the innovation and thought leader in the software networking category.”

Vyatta developed the industry’s first platform independent network operations system – the Vyatta Network OS.

“It all started with our pioneering belief that software networking could go viral. It did, and the Vyatta community grew in the way self-organizing communities do. Today, Vyatta has the largest software networking footprint on the planet,” Vyatta CEO Kelly Herrell said in a blog.

Vyatta is currently developing a next-generation on-demand network Operating System that can provide advanced routing, security and VPN functionality for physical, virtual and cloud networking environments.

Herrell said by joining Brocade, the development teams get the benefit of Brocade’s solidity in the network infrastructure market and the agility of its software group.

“Our customers and partners get an even more aggressive partner for their SDN strategies - one that truly understands both the technology and the business of IP networking, as well as one that isn't the least bit afraid of wielding an aggressive software strategy,” Herrell said.

Vyatta will be merged into Brocade’s Software Networking Business unit which will report to Cheng.

“The move to software networking enables Brocade to move up the value stack to our customers and partners and allows us to utilize both hardware and software development to become truly an end-to-end networking company,” Cheng said.