Cisco Systems Acquires Cariden's Capacity Planning and Management Tools for IP/MPLS

By Rajani Baburajan, TMCnet Contributor

Cisco Systems (News - Alert) has completed the acquisition of Cariden Technologies’ properties including the capacity planning and management tools for IP/MPLS networks and talent. According to reports, Cisco paid approximately $141 million in cash and retention-based incentives in exchange for all shares of Cariden.

Cariden Technologies is a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based supplier of network planning, design and traffic management solutions for telecommunications service providers.  The company was founded in 2001 with the mission of providing network design, planning and automation tools to telecommunication service providers.

The strategic acquisition of Cariden’s products and technology is expected to enhance Cisco’s nLight technology for IP and optical convergence. These technologies will help service providers improve both the programmability of their networks and the utilization of existing network assets across the IP and optical transport layers.

Cariden is a profitable business with customers around the world. In fact, the company’s software is emerging as the de facto standard modeling and optimization tool for IP and MPLS networks. Its flagship product MATE is a software package with a series of modules that facilitate tasks such as network visualization, simulation and optimization. MATE provides turnkey software for network discovery, modeling, and traffic engineering. The software is unique in its ability to support architecture, engineering, planning and operations usage scenarios.

Additionally, the acquisition enables Cisco to leverage Cariden’s products and technology which will assist it in achieving progressive programmability of networks as well as being able to better utilize the current network across the IP and optical transport layers, the company said.

As an immediate outcome of the merger, the Cariden team will be integrated into Cisco’s Service Provider Networking Group. 

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