Riverbed Technology announced deal to acquire Xirrus, the leading provider of next generation Wi-Fi networks for for an undisclosed fee.
The acquisition of the privately-held company will expand Riverbed’s SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) and cloud networking solution. Riverbed will also continue to offer Xirrus as a stand-alone enterprise WLAN solution.
By adding Xirrus, the power of policy-based orchestration by Riverbed's SD-WAN solution, SteelConnect will be further extended to the wireless edge, said the company.
The latest news continues Riverbed’s SteelConnect momentum in the market the past year. In January 2016, Riverbed acquired Ocedo Networks, a leading SD-WAN provider to accelerate the delivery of Riverbed’s next-gen networking solutions, and launched SteelConnect as an early access offering in April 2016, which included “one-click” connectivity to AWS.
In September 2016, Riverbed announced general availability of SteelConnect 2.0 with many new features, including integrated visibility with Riverbed SteelCentral.
In early 2017, Riverbed added “one-click” secure connectivity to Microsoft Azure, integration with the market-leading WAN Optimization solution (Riverbed SteelHead SD), and a new offering for large-scale data center deployments; and in March 2017 Orange Business Services announced it will leverage SteelConnect to deliver a managed SD-WAN service.
Jerry M. Kennelly, Chairman and CEO, Riverbed
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. 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.
Shane Riverbed, CEO, Xirrus
The integration of our solutions combines 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.
