Cisco to Acquire Isovalent to Define the Future of Multicloud Networking and Security
Cisco announced the intent to acquire Isovalent, a leader in open source
cloud native networking and security, to bolster its secure networking
capabilities across public clouds.
The acquisition of Isovalent will build on the Cisco Security Cloud
vision, an AI-driven, cloud delivered, integrated security platform for
organizations of any shape and size. The Cisco Security Cloud enables customers
to abstract security controls from multicloud infrastructure to provide advanced
protection against emerging threats across any cloud, application or workload.
“Together with Isovalent, Cisco will build on the open source power of
Cilium to create a truly unique multicloud security and networking capability
to help customers simplify and accelerate their digital transformation
journeys,” said Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager of
Security and Collaboration at Cisco. "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. The combination of Cisco and Isovalent will make
this a reality.”
Isovalent’s team is a major contributor to the open source technology
eBPF, and has led the development of Cilium, the leading cloud native solution
for networking and security. eBPF provides unmatched visibility into the inner
workings of the operating system - an ideal interface for building security
systems that can protect a workload while it runs. Cilium provides IT and
platform engineering teams with powerful networking capabilities and
unparalleled visibility into the behavior and communication of cloud native
applications, enabling seamless policy definition of software-defined networks.
Isovalent has also recently introduced:
· Cilium Mesh: allows for the easy connection of Kubernetes clusters with
existing infrastructure across hybrid clouds,
· Tetragon: an eBPF-based open source security solution that provides visibility to
and enforces runtime behavior within an application and on the network.
· Isovalent Enterprise: an enterprise distribution of Cilium and Tetragon
Cisco intends to continue offering and building on Isovalent’s slate of
innovations for customers, including Isovalent Enterprise.
“Cisco is committed to nurturing, investing in, and contributing to the
eBPF and Cilium open source communities,” said Stephen Augustus, Head of Open
Source at Cisco. “Isovalent’s team will join Cisco's deep bench of open source
governance and technical leadership to solve complex cloud native, security, and
networking challenges. Their knowledge will accelerate innovation across the
business and help further strengthen the Cisco Security Cloud platform to meet
the growing demands of our customers.”
Isovalent holds leadership positions in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and eBPF Foundation, in addition to upstream software
contributions, and this acquisition strengthens Cisco's role in supporting the
open source ecosystem. Together as leaders in networking and security, Cisco
and Isovalent will build solutions powered by eBPF technology that aim to solve
the challenge of protecting workloads no matter where they reside. Cisco is
committed to Cilium and Tetragon as open source projects and intends to create
an independent advisory board to help steer Cisco's contributions to these
important efforts in a way that is aligned with the needs of the open source
community.
The Isovalent team will join the Cisco Security Business Group once the
acquisition closes, which is expected in the third quarter of fiscal year 2024.
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