Oracle acquires Xsigo

Oracle has acquired network virtualisation software company Xsigo for an undisclosed sum.

It is thoughtthat Oracle will supplement its own server virtualisation portfolio with Xsigo's software-defined networking products in a bid to bolster its cloud strategy.

Xsigo is mainly known for its software-defined networking products and counts Verizon, Softbank, eBay and BT among its customers.

While the company touts its products as being compatible with any network or storage device, it does have one of its products aimed explicitly at Oracle databases.

"Customers are focused on reducing costs and improving utilisation of their network," said Lloyd Carney, Xsigo chief executive.

"Virtualisation of these resources allows customers to scale compute and storage for their public and private clouds while matching network capacity as demand dictates."

The transaction is expected to go through by the autumn of this year. Until then, the two companies will act independently.

"The proliferation of virtualised servers in the last few years has made the virtualization of the supporting network connections essential," said John Fowler, Oracle's Systems executive vice president.

"With Xsigo, customers can reduce the complexity and simplify management of their clouds by delivering compute, storage and network resources that can be dynamically reallocated on-demand," he added.

The Xsigo purchase marks Oracle's sixth acquisition this year following the purchase of social enterprise firms Collective Intellect and Vitrue.

Last week, rival VMware made a foray into software-defined networking with the purchase of Nicira for just over $1 billion. Unlike Nicira, Xsigo's products are not based on OpenFlow, a standard software-defined networking protocol, which allows organisations to use networking devices from many different vendors.

The deal is subject to regulatory approval and other closing conditions.