Cisco Systems Inc. today announced plans to acquire Sedona Systems Ltd., a startup with software that companies use to monitor the health of their networks and simulate changes.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Palo Alto, California-based Sedona previously raised funding from investors that included Intel Corp. and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Cisco is buying Sedona because the data center technology giant has been building a portfolio of products to simplify the management of networks that include both optical and nonoptical equipment. Sedona’s technology, which focuses on the same task, will advance that product roadmap. The acquisition comes a few months after Cisco inked a $4.5 billion deal to acquire Acacia Communications, a maker of chips for building optical networks.

Companies often have to manage optical gear separately from the rest of their networks because of technology compatibility challenges. That makes tasks such as troubleshooting performance issues difficult. Sedona’s product, a software platform called NetFusion, eases troubleshooting by providing a centralized monitor interface that allows administrators to track the health of both optical network components and other equipment in one place.

NetFusion displays maps that show what parts of the network are experiencing traffic slowdowns and outages. After identifying where an issue is happening, administrators can use analytics features built into the platform to determine what’s causing it.

NetFusion’s monitoring features aren’t the only reason Cisco has decided to acquire Sedona. Kevin Wollenweber, the vice president of product management at Cisco’s service provider network systems business, pointed out in a blog post today that the platform also provides features for simulating network changes. Companies can use NetFusion to create a simulated replica of their networks and test updates virtually, which makes it possible to catch bugs before they’re released to production. 

Cisco believes that the acquisition will be a particular boon for the telecommunications providers in its customer base. Carriers have complex networks that span large geographic areas and include multiple types of hardware, including optical gear. Carrier networks’ complexity, coupled with fact that the volume of data traffic they process is increasingly rapidly, makes troubleshooting technical issues a particular challenge.

Cisco positions the acquisition of Sedona as a step toward easing the challenge. Following the deal, telecommunications clients will have the ability to “quickly move from clunky, manual operations across siloed teams and technologies to a completely automated and assured network that’s easily managed through a single pane of glass,” Wollenweber wrote.

“Modernizing operations is vitally important to changing the recurring costs of operating networks of massive scale,” he added. “Typically, it costs five dollars to operate for every dollar spent on equipment annually. That must change.”

An important detail is that, as part of its features for monitoring multiple types of network gear in one place, Sedona’s NetFusion platform supports equipment from several different hardware suppliers. The ability to centralize monitoring across different suppliers’ equipment makes it technically more practical for carriers to mix and match products from several providers. That, in turn, creates new opportunities to optimize infrastructure.

Photo: Cisco