American technology giant Cisco has said it will pay $610 million in cash to acquire a networking start-up led by an Indian-origin software industry veteran. Cisco will buy Viptela, a privately held software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) company based in San Jose, a move that will expand its portfolio.
Viptela CEO Praveen Akkiraju, a University of Madras and Harvard Business School alumnus, said the the firm’s fabric, as it relates to SD-WAN and cloud networking, ‘fits in as an important piece of Cisco’s Enterprise Networking strategy which is driving an industry-wide transition to a software centric architecture and business model.’.