AT&T says it has agreed to acquire the Vyatta network operating system and associated assets from Brocade Communications Systems for an undisclosed sum. The assets include the vRouter product line. The service provider says the assets will assist in its efforts to virtualize and software-control 75% of its network by 2020, including the use of white box platforms.
AT&T says it will hire "certain" Brocade employees, mostly in California and the UK, associated with the Brocade business. The deal is expected to close in early summer, subject to closing conditions, prior to the closing of the acquisition of Brocade by Broadcom.
The assets AT&T will acquire include 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. In addition to the virtualization initiative, which AT&T hopes will cover 55% of its network by the end of this year, the assets also will complement the company's software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) initiative as well as such white box projects as the one trialed earlier this year (see "AT&T field trials open source white box switches").
"Our network transformation effort lets us add new features quicker than ever before at a much lower cost," said Andre Fuetsch, chief technology officer and president of AT&T Labs. "Being able to design and build the tools we need to enable that transformation is a win for us and for our customers."
For Brocade, the sale is part of the company's plan to divest itself of its IP Networking business ahead of its sales to Broadcom. The business consists of wireless and campus networking, data center switching and routing, and software networking offerings. Along these lines, Brocade previously announced the sale of its Ruckus Wireless and ICX switch business to ARRIS, its data center networking business to Extreme Networks, and the Virtual Delivery Application Controller business to an affiliate of Pulse Secure LLC.
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