Cisco to buy open source multicloud security vendor Isovalent

Dive Brief:

Cisco agreed to buy Isovalent in a bid to bolster its networking security capabilities in the cloud, the networking giant said Thursday. Terms of the deal, which Cisco expects to close by April 2024, were not disclosed.
The open source networking and security observability vendor, which created and contributed to the development of extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) and Cilium technologies, is used in Amazon and Google’s managed Kubernetes offerings. Cisco was an early investor in Isovalent and said the company’s technology will strengthen the Cisco Security Cloud platform.
“Imagine in today's distributed environment — of applications, virtual machines, containers and cloud assets — having security controls with total visibility, without hindering networking and application performance,” said Jeetu Patel, EVP and GM of security and collaboration at Cisco. “The combination of Cisco and Isovalent will make this a reality."

Dive Insight:

Cisco’s deal for Isovalent follows the company’s blockbuster $28 billion agreement to acquire software observability firm Splunk in September. The pair of acquisitions build upon Cisco’s efforts to accelerate business growth in network security and observability.

Tom Gillis, SVP and GM of Cisco’s Security Business Group, described eBPF in a blog post as a powerful open source technology that “unlocks security, observability and networking functionality at the kernel level that was not possible before.”

Cisco said it would continue to invest in Isovalent’s open source technologies and contribute to its respective communities’ development.

“It was clear from the beginning that Cisco came to the table with a clear vision to double down on our products and our open source strategy with a strong commitment to our open source projects,” Thomas Graf, co-founder and CTO at Isovalent, said in a blog post. “Open source has become the way to standardize technology and cloud native infrastructure is no exception."

Isovalent, which has headquarters in Zurich and Cupertino, California, will join the Cisco Security Business Group once the deal closes.