Riverbed enters cloud Wi-Fi market with new acquisition

Riverbed is set to acquire Xirrus, a global provider of cloud-enabled Wi-Fi networks.

The acquisition of the privately-held company will expand Riverbed’s SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) and cloud networking solution Riverbed SteelConnect with the integration of a 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 centre and the cloud. Riverbed will also continue to offer Xirrus as a stand-alone enterprise WLAN solution.

“Xirrus is a strategic acquisition for Riverbed, providing us with a leading enterprise-grade Wi-Fi solution, and enhancing SteelConnect to deliver an unmatched SD-WAN offering that will help further fuel our growth in this hot market,” said Jerry M. Kennelly, Riverbed chairman and chief executive officer.

“In today’s digital, cloud, and mobile world, enterprise networks are more complex and unpredictable than ever before and IT is struggling to manage all of this. A fundamental rethink to networking is required and with this acquisition, Riverbed and our partners are uniquely positioned to provide CIOs and businesses with a software-defined networking approach that delivers unified connectivity and orchestration across the entire network.”

Riverbed SteelConnect SD-WAN solution offers simplicity and improved agility with centralised and unified management spanning the entire network fabric with policy-based orchestration and one-click connectivity to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure; enhanced 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.

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 recognised 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.

Riverbed plans to offer Xirrus solutions through its partner ecosystem. The acquisition of Thousand Oaks, California-based Xirrus is expected to close in April 2017. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.