AT&T has agreed to buy the Vyatta network operating system and associated assets of Brocade Communications Systems. This platform includes the vRouter product line.
AT&T also intends to hire certain Brocade employees associated with that business. The Vyatta platform will help AT&T continue to drive its network transformation.
AT&T expects to virtualize and software-control 75% of our network by 2020. It plan is to hit 55% by the end of 2017.
After the deal closes, AT&T will own the Vyatta network operating system, including its virtual network functions (VNFs) and distributed services platform, software under development as part of its unreleased roadmap, existing software licenses, and related patents and patent applications. The Brocade employees expected to join AT&T are mostly located in California and the United Kingdom.
This acquisition is expected to bolster AT&T's ability to deliver cloud or premises-based VNFs, starting with its previously announced SD-WAN cloud service with VeloCloud.
The Vyatta acquisition will also expand AT&T’s white box platform capabilities. In late March, AT&T completed a trial with a handful of companies and industry groups to design and build our own white box switches to manage data traffic more efficiently across our network.
Andre Fuetsch, CTO and President, AT&T Labs
Our network transformation effort lets us add new features quicker than ever before at a much lower cost. Being able to design and build the tools we need to enable that transformation is a win for us and for our customers.
