Oracle acquires Xsigo

Oracle said on Monday it has inked a deal to buy software-defined networking vendor Xsigo Systems, in a move that will support Oracle's ongoing foray into cloud computing, PC World reports.

Terms of the acquisition, which is expected to close within a few months, were not disclosed.

According to The Register, Xsigo was founded in 2004, and its products connect servers and networked devices across an InfiniBand fabric based on I/O Director hardware.

This is virtualised, so servers operate as if they have a normal, ordinary connection to a storage array or a network port.

With I/O virtualisation, network connections can be dynamically moved between servers, removing cable clutter and making a server-storage-network system more responsive to events and better able to optimise its resources to respond to them.

Oracle's move came a week after VMware executives announced they were spending $1.26 billion to buy Nicira, another startup that comes with SDN technologies, writes eWeek.

VMware officials hope to leverage the Nicira products, including its Network Virtualisation Platform, to create what they are calling the software-defined data centre, replacing traditional hardware-based facilities.