VMware eyes Avi Networks for data-center software

VMware punched up its data-center network virtualization capabilities by announcing it would buy Avi Networks load balancing, analytics and application-delivery technology for an undisclosed amount.

Founded in 2012 by a group of Cisco engineers and executives, Avi offers a variety of software-defined products and services including a software-based application delivery controller (ADC) and intelligent web-application firewall.  The software already integrates with VMware vCenter and NSX, OpenStack, third party SDN controllers, as well as Amazon AWS and Google Cloud Platform, Red Hat OpenShift and container orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes and Docker.

Upon close of the acquisition, the VMware and Avi Networks teams will work together to advance VMware’s Virtual Cloud Network plan, build out full stack L2-7 services, and deliver the public cloud experience for on-prem environments and data centers, said Tom Gillis, senior vice president and general manager, networking and security business unit, VMware.

Combining Avi Networks with VMware NSX will further enable organizations to respond to new opportunities and threats, create new business models, and deliver services to all applications and data, wherever they are located,” Gillis said. “Unlike traditional ADCs, Avi Networks does not require custom appliances and can be consumed on-prem, in public clouds, or as a service, enabling new flexibility and faster time to value at lower costs.”

Avi’s integration with VMware NSX delivers an application-services fabric that synchronizes with the NSX controller to provide automated, elastic load balancing including real-time analytics for applications deployed in the SDN environment. Avi also monitors, scales, and reconfigures application services in real time in response to changing performance requirements, Avi stated in a blog about the acquisition. 

In 2017 IDC said of Avi: “Existing application delivery infrastructure was designed for the client/server era, not for the demands of DevOps and microservices in a multi-cloud world. Avi Networks, NGINX, and Webscale Networks are all responding to the burgeoning requirement for cloud-native application-delivery solutions.”

The Avi acquisition would be VMware’s second in two months.  Earlier it bought Kubernetes-based technology provider Bitnami. In late 2018 it also bulked up its Kubernetes support by buying Heptio.