Dell has closed the acquisition of Silicon Valley data center networking vendor Force10. The buyer said the acquisition was a latest investment in the charge to broaden its networking portfolio to provide the Virtual Networking Services Infrastructure (VNSI).

The VNSI strategy is to provide automated VM management and movement across data centers, while maintaining visibility, security policies and resource efficiency. It also includes better manageability through consolidation of IT resources and increased responsiveness to business-driven application changes.

Dario Zamarian, VP and general manager of Dell's networking division, said VNSI was Dell's way of addressing new challenges customers face as data center networking transforms to support modern applications and virtualization.

"Force10's history of product innovation and technology leadership in data center networking matches and accelerates our vision," he said.

Cindy Borovick, research VP for data center networking at IDC, said Force10 gives Dell a "data center-class networking portfolio", which enables it to provide converged infrastructure. "Force10 Networks technology architecture will integrate well within Dell's virtual data center vision," she said.

The company first announced the agreement to buy Force10 for an undisclosed sum in July. Back then, it said Force10's annual revenue was about US$200m. Force10 does most of its business in North America, but has operations in more than 60 countries.

Dell has been pursuing an expansion of its presence in the enterprise business over the past three years, wanting to become a complete solutions provider. The company said Force10's technology strongly aligned with its server, storage and systems management portfolio.

Combining Force10 and Dell's PowerConnect switching products gives it a comprehensive switching portfolio for data centers, enterprises and branch-office environments.