Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) has bulked up its cloud computing and data center infrastructure capabilities by acquiring privately held security software firm Virtuata for an undisclosed amount.
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Cisco has been pulling back a number of its wide-ranging initiatives to concentrate on core routing and switching products and the telecommunications market and online video. That, obviously, doesn't mean that the Silicon Valley giant is pulling back on its acquisitions and, thus, when the opportunity arose to improve its cloud computing and data center capabilities it gobbled up Virtuata.
Data centers—in which Cisco has had a long history—are increasingly moving to cloud computing. This makes Virtuata "well aligned to our strategic goals to develop innovative virtualization, cloud and security technologies while also cultivating top talent," the company said in a statement covered by Dow Jones Newswire.
On the company blog, Cisco's Hilton Romanski, VP and head of corporate business development, said that Virtuata's acquisition "will enable consistent and enhanced security for virtual machines allowing customers to accelerate the deployment of multi-tenant, multi-hyperview cloud infrastructure."
The statement called the move "a technology and talent acquisition that brings unique infrastructure expertise in virtualization, cloud and security domains to Cisco and complements Cisco's data center and cloud product portfolio, including Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS) and Nexus-based United Fabric portfolio."
While financial details weren't released, Cisco did say it would roll the Milpitas, Calif.-based Virtuata workforce into its Data Center Group where they will no doubt rub shoulders with workers from some of the other companies Cisco has acquired of late, including network data analysis and reporting software maker Truviso and customer premise equipment management software vendor ClearAccess. Of course, the biggest acquisition—and a reflection on the company's fascination with video—was NDS Group, for which Cisco paid $4 billion.
For more:
- see this story
- and Cisco's announcement
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