Cisco to acquire Valtix to further cloud security strategy

With its first acquisition of 2023, tech giant Cisco says its unified Cisco Security Cloud strategy is a top priority

Cisco Systems is on a mission to build out its security portfolio unification strategy, Cisco Security Cloud. To that end, the company announced its plan to acquire Valtix, a privately held cloud network security start-up.

Five-year-old Valtix, a San Jose, California neighbor to Cisco, specialises in multi-cloud network security for the likes of AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle.

Combined into Cisco's security portfolio, Valtix will add a layer of visibility between public and private cloud networks and simplify the operational burden for security teams, Cisco said.

Cisco has been a strategic investor in Valtix for the last three years.

The two companies did not disclose financial terms of the deal.

"Cisco supports Valtix's commitment to simplify network security, protecting workloads no matter which cloud they are created or consumed in," said Cisco Security SVP and chief product officer Raj Chopra in a blog post.

"With their cloud- native, easy-to-use control plane, they enable customers with common policy and enforcements of networking across all major public cloud environments."

What is Cisco Security Cloud?

Unveiled in June 2022, Cisco Security Cloud is the basis of the company's security plan moving forward.

The unified, open-standards-based platform will ensure security across hybrid and multi-cloud environments with capabilities for securely connecting people, applications and devices located anywhere.

The platform will include threat prevention, detection, response and remediation at scale, with no vendor lock-in, Cisco said in 2022 when the strategy was announced. The company plans to develop Cisco Security Cloud over the next several years.

As part of the deal, the Valtix team will join Cisco‘s Security Business Group under the leadership of Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager of security and collaboration, where they will integrate into Cisco's Security Cloud portfolio, the tech giant said.

Cisco Security leader Patel told CRN in June that Cisco Security Cloud presents a huge opportunity for MSPs. "We think of partners as a key, critical component to us being able to succeed with Security Cloud," he said.

Cisco expects to close the acquisition by the end of the company's FS 2023 third quarter this spring.