Cisco gets into Topspin

Cisco Systems today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Topspin Communications, a privately held provider of programmable infrastructure technology for grid and utility computing, clustered enterprise applications and server virtualisation.

Topspin's server fabric switches are designed to connect servers into a grid, and then provide network and storage connectivity to that server grid.

According to Cisco, the Topspin product line will extend its data centre switching portfolio to include InfiniBand-based server switching technology that will complement its existing offerings.

These include its Ethernet-based Catalyst switching platform for internet/intranet infrastructure and its multi-protocol (Fibre Channel, FCIP, iSCSI and Ficon) MDS switches for storage area networks.

"The widespread adoption of server architectures such as blades, grid computing and clustered applications is driving an emerging market opportunity within the data centre," said Luca Cafiero, senior vice president at Cisco's data centre, switching and wireless technology group.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay approximately $250m in cash and options for Topspin.

The acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions, including applicable regulatory approvals, and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Cisco's fiscal 2005 ending 30 July.

Topspin was founded in April 2000 and has approximately 135 employees in Mountain View, California and Bangalore, India.