Juniper Networks Forks Out $95M in Cash to Acquire Leading Virtualization Security Vendor

In a step to strengthen its position in the enterprise and service provider virtualization markets, globally renowned networking solutions provider Juniper Networks acquired well-known virtualization security technology provider Altor Networks in an approximately $95 million cash deal.

In a press release, Juniper Networks (News - Alert) announced that this acquisition will enable the company to deliver an integrated, highly-scalable security architecture that protects physical and virtual systems. This, according to the company, will help extend its market-leading security position.

In a press release, Juniper explained that with organizations relying more on virtual servers for critical applications, concern around server security in the cloud has increased. Altor’s array of advanced products was designed to address this challenge. A range of Altor’s products included a high-performance hypervisor-based firewall, on-board intrusion detection, complete network visibility and monitoring and comprehensive reporting for compliance.

Altor's solutions are trusted for security visibility, compliance and control over the entire virtual machine infrastructure, giving security teams' visibility to understand the applications, services and traffic being sent between virtual machines.

“Juniper is excited to acquire one of the industry's leading virtualization security vendors and the extremely talented team that built it. This acquisition will extend our leadership in data center and cloud security and will enable customers to deploy a consistent set of security services across their physical and virtual infrastructure, while delivering lowest total cost of ownership,” said executive vice president and general manager at Juniper Networks Mark Bauhaus, in a statement.

Three year old Altor Networks was founded by security and networking experts from some of the industry's leading vendors.

“Altor has led the virtualization security market in innovation, defense-in-depth and performance. Today, we join forces with Juniper, which shares a common vision for securing data centers and the cloud, and together we look forward to extending our leadership in the VM security market. We are excited about the opportunity to leverage Juniper's world-class organization and market-leading products to deliver tightly integrated, feature-rich security solutions to customers,” said Amir Ben-Efraim, CEO and co-founder of Altor Networks, in a statement.

Earlier this year, Juniper Networks made a venture investment in the company.

In July, Juniper acquired SMobile Systems (News - Alert) in a $70 million cash deal. The acquisition of SMobile, the producer of smartphone and tablet security solutions, was made with a view to strengthen its foothold in the area of mobile security.