AT&T intends to hire some Brocade employees involved in this business. The deal is expected to close in early summer, though it is subject to closing conditions and Broadcom Limited's previously announced proposal to acquire Brocade. Financial terms have not been disclosed.
 
The Vyatta platform will help AT&T continue its network transformation. The company expects to virtualize and control 75% of its network via software by 2020, and to end 2017 with 55% of its network virtualized.
 
“Our network transformation efforts allow us to add new features faster than ever before at a much lower cost,” said Andre Fuetsch, chief technology officer and president of AT&T Labs. “Being able to design and build the tools we need to enable this transformation is a success for us and our customers.”.
 
Upon completion of the acquisition, AT&T will own the Vyatta network operating system, including its virtual network functions (VNFs) and distributed services platform, software under development, existing software licenses, patents, and patent applications. Brocade employees are expected to relocate to AT&T's California and UK headquarters.
 
In addition, AT&T believes the acquisition will allow it to improve its position to deploy cloud-based or on-premises VNFs, starting with the already announced SD-WAN service launched in conjunction with VeloCloud.
 
The acquisition of Vyatta will expand the capabilities of AT&T's white box platform. In late March, AT&T completed a trial with several companies to design and build their own white box switches to manage traffic data more efficiently across the company's network.
 
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