© Copyright Nostre Net
After being a security partner for SD-WAN vendors, Palo Alto Networks is now a competitor in the SD-WAN sector with its $420 million purchase of CloudGenix. Palo Alto announced the all-cash deal on Tuesday, and it is expected to close in its fiscal fourth quarter once it clears the usual regulatory hurdles.
The deal for CloudGenix is notable on several fronts. Increased security by SD-WAN vendors has been one of the major trends over the past few years, which has generated business for Palo Alto Network's firewall virtual network functions.
CloudGenix was rumored to be on the market last year. The deal with Palo Alto Networks marked what could be more consolidation among the 60-plus vendors in the marketplace.
"This is the classic convergence between SD WAN and network security," said Lee Doyle, principal analyst at Doyle Research. "This gives Palo Alto an SD-WAN feature as part of its security offering. It gives them one of the leading independent SD-WAN players. It also gives Palo Alto CloudGenix's customer base and leading edge technology to incorporate into their offer."
Palo Alto Networks will integrate CloudGenix's cloud-managed SD-WAN products with its cloud-based Prisma Access security to accelerate the on-boarding of remote branches and retail stores. Palo Alto said the combination would extend the breadth of the Prisma Access SASE platform, address network and security transformation requirements, and accelerate the shift from SD-WAN to SASE. SASE, which was coined by Gartner last year, defines a sub-trend in SD-WAN, which includes integrating SD-WAN with cloud-based security applications.
The Wall