AT&T has announced an agreement to buy the Vyatta assets of Brocade Communications, including the Vyatta network operating system and vRouter product line. Under the terms of the deal, the financial details of which were not disclosed, AT&T will also hire certain Brocade employees associated with Vyatta located mostly in California and the UK. The transaction is set to close in early summer, prior to the closing of Broadcom's purchase of Brocade, said AT&T, adding that the Vyatta purchase will help it continue its network transformation. The company said it expects to virtualise and software-control 55 percent of its network by the end of this year and 75 percent by 2020.
In a statement, AT&T stressed that once the deal closes it will own the Vyatta network operating system, including its virtual network functions (VNFs) and distributed services platform, software under development as part of its unreleased roadmap, existing software licenses, and related patents and patent applications. It added that the acquisition will also bolster its ability to deliver cloud or premises-based VNFs, starting with the company’s previously announced SD-WAN cloud service with VeloCloud.
