US networking heavyweight Cisco today said it was buying privately held UK software specialist Ensoft for an undisclosed sum.
San Jose-headquartered Cisco said the acquisition will “further our commitment to simplify service provider networks through automation and programmability.”
Harpenden-based Ensoft employs around 70 software engineers specialising in networking software.
The company already develops IOS XR (the distributed carrier-class software powering Cisco’s highest-end multi-terabit routers) features for Cisco, and will continue to support networking software offered through Cisco.
Ensoft describes itself as “highly profitable” and has reported annual revenues of circa £10 million. Director and CTO Simon Chatterjee has been a Lead Architect for Cisco and was co-architect of IOS-XR.
The company’s employees will fall under Cisco’s Service Provider Networking Group led by its SVP and GM Sumeet Arora.
Cisco’s Rob Salvagno, head of the company’s M&A and venture investment team said in a blog today: “Cisco’s networking software strategy is centered on enabling simplified, scalable, trusted, and automatable IP network infrastructure.”
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“Innovation in unified transport and service layers with Segment Routing (SR) and Ethernet Virtual Private Networks (EVPN) is accelerating evolution of mass-scale IP infrastructure embedded with programmability and automation.”
He added: “Acquiring the Ensoft team accelerates this strategy and strengthens our commitment to our service provider customers. Cisco has developed the Cisco IOS XR operating system for service provider routing systems, which offers rich IP networking innovation across a variety of devices and form factors from a single code base. Ensoft brings a strong talent pipeline to Cisco, adding a high-performance team to augment Cisco’s ongoing innovation in networking software.”
Ensoft was ranked the top software company in the Sunday Times’ “100 best small companies to work for” in 2018.
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