Cisco to acquire network performance monitoring partner Accedian

Cisco has announced its intent to acquire network performance monitoring partner Accedian as it moves to bolster its network assurance and observability capabilities.

Founded in 2004, Accedian provides Skylight, a virtualized performance assurance platform that features full-stack unified network and application monitoring and data analysis. 

The offering is designed to proactively ensure networks and cloud applications meet performance requirements, optimize network capacity, as well as offer fixes for any problems it identifies.

Accedian is already a Cisco partner, with the pair having worked together as part of the Cisco SolutionsPlus program over the last two years, and Cisco currently offers Skylight to service partners as part of its Crosswork Network Automation platform. 

By bringing Accedian’s network performance and user experience monitoring capabilities in-house, Cisco said it has a “unique opportunity” to link the firm’s data into Cisco ThousandEyes’ cloud-to-end network assurance. 

The aim is to facilitate improved management of latency-dependent services that run on 5G networks.

“Accedian greatly strengthens Cisco’s approach to assurance, helping to enable agility, efficiency, and the scale that service providers need to drive success,” said Kevin Wollenweber, senior vice president and general manager for data center and provider connectivity at Cisco. 

“Accedian’s service assurance portfolio of microsecond level sensors and the powerful Skylight Analytics platform, coupled with Cisco’s robust portfolio, will enable Cisco to bring transformational solutions to our service provider customers.”

Upon completion of the acquisition, which is expected to close during Q1 of Cisco’s FY24, the Accedian team will join Cisco’s Data Center and Provider Connectivity organization. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Microseconds matter to customers and customer experience, and precise, granular performance visibility is a foundational requirement for closed-loop automation, agile telco cloud environments, and latency-sensitive 5G services,” said Dion Joannou, CEO at Accedian.

“We look forward to bringing our critical capabilities to a wider set of solutions within Cisco’s Networking portfolio and taking the next step in the partnership we have built with Cisco and our joint customers over the last years.”

The acquisition is the latest in a string of security buys for Cisco in 2023, with the networking giant previously snapping up multi-cloud security startup Valtix, Israeli security software firm Lightspin, as well as AI-powered threat detection provider Armorblox.