Juniper Snaps Up Altor Networks, Boosts Virtualization Security

By Sean Michael Kerner
December 8, 2010

Email Print Digg This Add to del.icio.us

Virtualization clearly offers costs savings, yet the added complexity presents potential security concerns. Sean Michael Kerner reports on a Juniper acquisition that addresses this very issue.

---

Juniper Networks is expanding its network security portfolio with the acquisition of privately held Altor Networks for $95 million. The cash deal is already officially closed and all Altor employees are now moving over to Juniper.

Altor is a provider of virtualization security technologies, including a virtualization firewall solution. With the acquisition, Juniper is continuing to expand the capabilities of its new network portfolio for virtualization. The Altor acquisition is the second acquisition made by Juniper in the last two months.

"By acquiring Altor, what we're really doing is extending our security footprint," Karim Toubba, vice president product marketing, service layer technologies at Juniper Networks told InternetNews.com.

Toubba noted that Juniper has been having conversations with customers about how to extend the security model to virtualization, which is what makes the Altor technology attractive. He added that enterprises have been facing challenges in securing virtual machine traffic, with limited visibility into the virtual traffic.

Read the rest at Enterprise Networking Planet.