Cisco Buys Cilium Project Creator Isovalent To Boost Security Cloud

Cisco says the goal is to create unique multi-cloud security and networking capabilities that will give customers visibility into security controls across distributed environments of applications, virtual machines, containers and cloud devices.

Networking leader Cisco said Thursday that it plans to buy Isovalent to make it easier to solve complex, cloud native, security and networking challenges and strengthen Cisco Security Cloud platform.

No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Isovalent has raised $69 million in total funding from investors that include Cisco and other tech heavyweights including M12 (Microsoft's Venture Fund), Grafana Labs and Google, according to research firm PitchBook. The deal is expected to close by April 27, 2024, the end of Cisco’s third quarter.

Isovalent, founded in 2017, was built by the creators of Cilium, open-source, cloud-native software for security and observing network connectivity between workloads. The company is also a major contributor to open-source observability platform eBPF, which Cisco called “an ideal interface for building security systems that can protect a workload while it runs.”

"Together with Isovalent, Cisco will build on the open-source power of Cilium to create a truly unique multi-cloud security and networking capability to help customers simplify and accelerate their digital transformation journeys," said Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager of Security and Collaboration at Cisco, in a statement.

"Imagine in today's distributed environment - of applications, virtual machines, containers and cloud assets - having security controls with total visibility, without hindering networking and application performance. The combination of Cisco and Isovalent will make this a reality,” he added.

Isovalent has introduced new products recently, including Cilium Mesh, which easily connects Kubernetes clusters across hybrid clouds; Tetragon, the eBPF-based security solution for visibility, which also enforces runtime behavior within an application and on the network; and Isovalent Enterprise, a larger distribution of Cilium and Tetragon.

Cisco said it plans to put more money behind the open-source foundation on which Isovalent was created, and vowed continued funding for eBPF, Cilium, Tetragon, and the open-source environment.

"Cisco is committed to nurturing, investing in, and contributing to the eBPF and Cilium open-source communities," said Stephen Augustus, Head of Open Source at Cisco, in a statement. "Isovalent's team will join Cisco's deep bench of open-source governance and technical leadership to solve complex cloud native, security, and networking challenges. Their knowledge will accelerate innovation across the business and help further strengthen the Cisco Security Cloud platform to meet the growing demands of our customers."

Isovalent is a privately held company headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., but has offices around the world. Its technology is used by several enterprises including Bell Canada, Amazon Web Services, Google, Adobe, and Datadog. The firm has more than 150 employees, according to LinkedIn.

The acquisition is Cisco’s eleventh of the year. It follows the blockbuster announcement three months ago that it would buy Splunk, another security and visibility platform.

It is part of a larger cloud security strategy for Cisco Security Cloud that Cisco has crafted to give customers an AI-driven, cloud-delivered, integrated security platform for organizations of all-sizes, Cisco said.

The Cisco Security Cloud lets customers abstract security controls from multi-cloud infrastructure and gives them advanced protection against threats across any cloud, application or workload, Cisco said.