Brocade has announced that the company is acquiring the privately held Vyatta. Brocade produces a range of data and storage networking products, and considers the acquisition to be a good fit. Vyatta specialises in developing a software defined networking (SDN) and builds that software atop of an open source Debian-based distribution, Vyatta Core, which it commercialises as Vyatta Network OS.

Brocade expects to complete the acquisition by the end of the 2012, but is not disclosing other details of the transaction. Once acquired, Vyatta will become part of Brocade's Software Networking Business unit which reports to Brocade VP Ken Cheng. In a blog post, Cheng called Vyatta "the pioneer in virtual routing, security and VPN in the software networking segment" and pointed out that with Brocade's experience of Ethernet fabrics, the foundation for many cloud network architectures, and Vyatta's software networking, the combined companies would be able to offer an "ideal platform" for SDN users.

In a message to the Vyatta open source community, the company said that it "will continue to support the open source community. Without its support, the company would not have grown to be a leader in the software-based networking movement."

(djwm)