Arista Networks Buys VeloCloud SD-WAN Portfolio From Broadcom

The SD-WAN buy comes on the same day that former Fastly CEO Todd Nightingale starts as COO for Arista Networks.

Networking specialist Arista Networks has scooped up the VeloCloud SD-WAN portfolio from Broadcom as the company expands its branch networking capabilities.

The announcement comes on the start day of the company’s new chief operating officer, Todd Nightingale, who Arista announced on June 16 would be joining as president and COO, effective July 1.

Financial terms of the VeloCloud buy were not disclosed.

The combination will bring VeloCloud’s cloud-delivered SD-WAN offerings with integrated security into Arista’s wired and wireless switching portfolio, the company said.

VeloCloud offers hardware platforms featuring integrated secure firewalling and application-optimized SD-WAN, available with a choice of integrated Wi-Fi or 5G mobile connectivity. Arista said that the portfolio will provide expanded choice and performance for Arista customers for global WAN services to interconnect data centers and distributed campus offices. VeloCloud’s technology will complement Arista’s CloudEOS multi-cloud and cloud-native networking offering and high-end 7000-series WAN routers.

“Today, Arista is taking an important and relevant step to bridge the gap between enterprise and cloud WAN access. We are pleased to announce the acquisition of VeloCloud’s novel WAN portfolio from our partner, Broadcom. The new Arista [plus] VeloCloud combination will provide modern WAN solutions for customers globally,” said the company’s longtime CEO and founder, Jayshree Ullal, in a blog post on the deal.

VMware bought VeloCloud in 2017, following Cisco’s move earlier the same year to acquire SD-WAN startup Viptela for $610 million. VeloCloud’s business became part of Broadcom after Broadcom acquired VMware for $61 billion in 2022.

Nightingale, for his part, is joining Arista Networks from edge cloud company Fastly Inc. where he served as the company’s CEO since 2022.

Nightingale, a networking visionary, jumped to Fastly from Cisco where he had a 10-year tenure. Nightingale joined Cisco in 2012 when the company acquired Meraki, a company that was headed by Nightingale at the time. He first served as senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Meraki business, later climbing the ranks within Cisco to serve as executive vice president and general manager of the tech giant’s Enterprise Networking and Cloud business.