Cisco Splashes $125m On Cloupia For Managing Cloud

Cisco is hoping to expand its server and virtualised networking offerings with the $125 million acquisition of Cloupia.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2013, or 28 January 2013 at the latest. It will see the networking giant take control of Cloupia’s infrastructure management software, designed to manage converged data centre deployments.

The software will offer a single “pane-of-glass” management tool that covers both Cisco kit, and partner solutions like Vblock solutions.

Cisco on virtual roll

Cisco is going to add the technology into its Unified Computing System (UCS) server bundles and with its Nexus switching line-up, which should help customers with their VLANs and other virtualised workloads.

“This strategy involves the delivery of the industry’s most comprehensive data centre networking portfolio, which includes physical and virtual products that support multiple hypervisors and storage stacks,” said David Yen, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Data Center Business Group, which Cloupia will become a part of.

“The addition of Cloupia’s automation software enhances the efficiency of such unified data centre infrastructures, helping to accelerate the transition from physical to cloud environments more quickly and effectively.”

Cloupia will also be complementary to Cisco’s recent acquisitions of Tidal, LineSider and NewScale, as well as the networking firm’s Intelligent Automation for Cloud (IAC) product, the company said.

“The Cloupia acquisition reinforces Cisco’s commitment to deliver an intelligent network by providing market leading infrastructure across the data centre,” added Hilton Romanski, VP and head of corporate business development at Cisco, in a blog post.

The company this week reported better-than-expected results, with $11.9 billion (£7.5bn) in sales, representing a six percent jump over the same period in 2011.

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