Cisco has snapped up vCider, a virtual overlay networking company it will roll into its efforts to develop software-defined, virtual networking.

In a blog posted Tuesday, Hilton Romanski, vice president of corporate business development for Cisco, wrote that Mountain View, Calif.-based vCider will become part of the company's Cloud Computing organization and be integrated into its Open Network Environment strategy, through which Cisco is pursuing software-defined, programmable networking.

vCider's flagship product is a multitenant distributed virtual network controller.

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In pursuit of this networking strategy, Cisco has become a strong supporter of OpenStack, the open-source networking standards organization, and in particular its Quantum program that is giving developers the ability to create programmable networks.

"OpenStack is a key pillar of Cisco’s open, multi-hypervisor, multi-stack Cloud computing strategy," Romanski wrote in the blog.

"With Quantum becoming a core OpenStack service, it’s clear that programmable networking is quickly becoming an important component in large scale, multi-tenant, cloud computing environments," Romanski added. "Cisco’s Quantum plug-in is designed to give application developers increased programmability of both virtual and physical networks linking the world of cloud computing to the advanced capabilities of Cisco’s Open Networking Environment (ONE)."

Cisco is keeping pace with industry efforts to develop software-defined networks that move beyond proprietary network hardware.

VMware in particular has made progress in software-defined networking by purchasing software-defined networking startup Nicira for $1.2 billion in July.

On Wednesday, IBM unveiled a software-defined networking controller as it develops its own intelligent networking product.

Cisco has been developing its software-defined network strategy for some time to make certain its products are interoperable, said Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst with ZK Research. "But the one thing Cisco didn't have was a controller," Kerravala said.

PUBLISHED OCT. 4, 2012