Cygna Labs is acquiring Nokia’s VitalQIP product, adding those assets to its DDI portfolio that CEO Christian Ehrenthal said puts Cygna Labs head-to-head with competitors like Infoblox and BlueCat. DDI software forms the foundation of IP networks and encompasses domain name system (DNS), dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP), and IP address management (IPAM).

VitalQIP will continue to be offered as a standalone product line and has already been incorporated into Cygna Labs’ portfolio of managed services, granting optionality, which Ehrenthal said will be key for existing and new customers.

“There's overlap with our existing product portfolio,” he told SDxCentral. “So customers will not suddenly be faced with the challenge of merging these two.”

On-premises DDI solutions are “mandatory” for Cygna Labs large-sized customers who can't move to the public cloud yet because of the “downtime that Azure and AWS [Amazon Web Services] still have,” Ehrenthal explained. DDI as a managed service can help take care of these on-premises solutions now and also ease the eventual migration to public cloud.

Cygna Labs said it also plans to invest into VitalQIP through increased research and development. Ehrenthal said the focus will be to “bring forward the product roadmaps and not just make sure that things are slowly patched and kept alive, but really put some additional development muscle behind it to bring, what we believe is still a great solution that's very scalable, forward.”

“We're not going to force anyone into anything, but there are going to be a lot of options for them going forward. They can continue to use the product as is, they will see increased research and development with really new versions and new things coming out on the VitalQIP platform, and better support than what they have with an option for a managed service,” he added.

Cygna Labs will inherit all of VitalQIP’s customers, but Nokia will remain a reseller of the product to ease that transition for enterprises who prefer a single point of contact.

“One of the key drivers is that a lot of these very large enterprise accounts add new accounts to Cygna, which of course for us is very attractive going forward in terms of whatever other products they might be interested in,” Ehrenthal noted.

Cygna Labs was listed as the No. 3 vendor by IDC in worldwide DDI market share, behind Infoblox and BlueCat. Ehrenthal claims Cygna Labs will surpass BlueCat for the No. 2 position following the Nokia VitalQIP acquisition.

“When you add the market share that Cygna already had as No. 3 to Nokia’s market share it moves us clearly past BlueCat,” Ehrenthal said.

Brandon Butler, research manager at IDC, said Cygna Labs’ acquisition of the VitalQIP DDI business is “a significant advancement for the company, as well as the broader DDI market.”

“Integrating the VitalQIP DDI product into Cygna Labs’ portfolio gives the company a broad range of DDI offerings for enterprises and service providers. Combined with the company’s strong managed services for DDI, the acquisition enhances and solidifies Cygna Labs’ standing in the DDI market,” Butler added.

In 2022, Cygna Labs acquired Diamond IP from British Telecom (BT), which Ehrenthal said “uniquely” provides managed service capabilities high in-demand from large companies. Cygna Labs that year also acquired NCC Group’s DDI business, including the DDI Guard product, portfolio of DDI customers, and NCC Group’s team of DDI experts. NCC was previously one of the largest resellers of Nokia VitalQIP and the Diamond IP product.

According to Ehrenthal, DDI as a managed service is “something none of the other vendors do, and given the mission critical nature of DDI, something that [Cygna Labs has] seen a lot of large accounts being very interested in.”

“Really, one of the last pieces of the puzzle for us was adding the Nokia solution,” Ehrenthal said, noting that Cygna Labs offices in Germany have been “the biggest reseller of VitalQIP for the last 10 plus years.”

"We’re very familiar with the technology and everything around that. So it really made a lot of sense for us adding it,” he explained. “That's really where the acquisition was focused, to really compete head-to-head with Infoblox in this market and move BlueCat from spot No. 2 back to No. 3.”