Nokia acquires Deepfield, enhances IP network security analytics capabilities

Nokia has reached an agreement to acquire Deepfield, deepening its analytics-driven network and service automation capabilities.

Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Deepfield is a specialist in real-time analytics for IP network performance management and security. Financial terms of the acquisition, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017, were not disclosed. The company was founded in 2011 and currently employs 65 people.

By purchasing Deepfield, Nokia said it will gain additional analytics-driven network and service automation capabilities. The company can use these elements to provide greater network and application insight, control and DDoS protection to customers such as communications service providers, cable operators and cloud, webscale and large technology companies.

RELATED: Adva, Ciena and Nokia gain optical share on metro 100G, colocation growth, says research firm

One of the crown jewels of Deepfield's portfolio is its internet Genome technology, which can identify over 30,000 popular cloud applications and services, tracking how traffic runs to and through networks to reach subscribers, in real time.

After completing the acquisition, Nokia plans to couple Deepfield’s big data analytics capabilities with the dynamic control capabilities of open SDN platforms, such as the Nokia Network Services Platform (NSP) and Nuage Networks Virtualized Services Platform (VSP).

The company said the operations will become a cognitive "brain" able to make real-time, automated changes to wide area networks (WANs) and data center networks so they can quickly adapt to application demand or flow and traffic patterns.

Application usage visibility is a major focus for Deepfield. While cloud-based applications and services like Netflix and HBO Go make up more than 60% of traffic today, according an internal company study, service providers have limited insight into which applications are running on their networks, and what impact this application traffic is having on their networks and subscribers.

The advent of SDN and NFV technologies is creating new demand for network and service automation, which requires big data analytics that can be delivered in real time.