News
Riverbed Announces Definitive Agreement to Acquire Leading Cloud-Enabled Wi-Fi Networks Provider Xirrus,
April 2017 by Marc Jacob
Riverbed Technology announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire Xirrus, the leading provider of next generation Wi-Fi networks. The acquisition of the privately-held company will expand Riverbed’s market leading SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) and cloud networking solution Riverbed SteelConnect with the integration of a robust and proven suite of advanced, high density and cloud-managed Wi-Fi solutions, offering Riverbed customers and partners the power of unified connectivity and policy-based orchestration that spans the entire distributed network – WAN, LAN/WLAN, data center and the cloud. Riverbed will also continue to offer Xirrus as a stand-alone enterprise WLAN solution.
Riverbed SteelConnect is a highly differentiated SD-WAN solution offering: unparalleled simplicity and improved agility with centralized and unified management spanning the entire network fabric with policy-based orchestration and one-click connectivity to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure; superior performance with integrated WAN optimization and visibility; network and application intelligence with business intent-based policies and user experience driven control. By adding Xirrus, the power of policy-based orchestration by
SteelConnect will be further extended to the wireless edge.
Xirrus’ proven technology performs under the most demanding circumstances, offering consistent “wired-like” performance with superior coverage and security. The Xirrus suite of Wi-Fi solutions – high density access points, access points and cloud services – provide seamless connectivity and unified management across the network. Xirrus is recognized by Gartner in the “Visionaries” quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for the most recent Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure report. With solutions deployed on tens of thousands of networks and hundreds of thousands of cloud instances, Xirrus customers include some of the best known global companies and recognized brand names, including Microsoft, University of Mississippi, Liverpool Football Club and Paul Hastings Law Firm.
Today’s 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. Today, Riverbed’s over 300 SD-WAN customers span across a wide range of industries globally, including retail, manufacturing, healthcare, professional services, finance, technology, and more.
Riverbed plans to offer Xirrus solutions through its robust partner ecosystem. The acquisition of Thousand Oaks, California-based Xirrus is expected to close in April 2017.
