Network-centric Waterloo, ON-based RMM [Remote Monitoring and Management] software provider Auvik Networks has deepened their network centricity. The company has announced the acquisition of Barcelona Spain-based Talaia, and its network traffic analytics technology, which will be integrated into Auvik’s network management system to enhance their MSPs’ deep network traffic visibility.

Auvik adapted a version of its software into a [RMM] platform for MSPs, and entered that market in 2015. They currently have close to 1400 MSP partners. Their differentiation has always been a deep network management focus, something they say is not a strength in the industry, because it has been slow in innovating in the space. With Talaia, which is the company’s first acquisition, Auvik further improves that focus.

“We previously provided network traffic analysis through a product from Kentik, which we branded as AuvikFlow,” Marc Morin, Auvik’s CEO, told ChannelBuzz. “AuvikFlow was working well for us, but we decided that to further develop network traffic capability going forward, we needed to actually own the product.”

Talaia is a newish startup that was formed in 2013 and first took product to market in 2015.

“The company was started at UPC-BarcelonaTech university by academics, and spun out of the university,” Morin said. “Their main issue in taking it to market is that they were technologists first and marketers secondarily. They had been selling it mainly to enterprises and to ISPs. We first ran into them a year ago, and initially wanted to partner with them, but it became obvious to both of us that it made more sense to join more formally.”

The Talaia solution is highly scalable and fully multi-tenanted, and Morin said that it will add new capabilities to Auvik’s platform.

“They use a machine learning engine that provides a deeper understanding of good traffic versus bad traffic, to provide more comprehensive network visualization for blocking certain kinds of traffic,” Morin said. “It’s much more complex than just monitoring. We have already aggressively begun doing the engineering work, and will be rolling out a light integration as a beta by next month to select partners. It’s important to get this out to the broad partner base as soon as possible.”

When fully integrated into Auvik, as a component that they will brand TrafficInsights, the technology will provide the MSP with visibility into traffic flows across enabled network devices. This will include traffic by application, protocol, IP address, and port, traffic going to and coming from malicious sites, and a visual representations of where traffic is going once it leaves the network.

“In the short term, the MSP will know more about why the Internet is slow and their clients are unhappy, but longer term, it will be more about security and learning what’s inside the Internet traffic,” Morin said.

Talaia’s development team will all come over to Auvik. So now in addition to their main office in Waterloo, another Canadian office in Ottawa and an office in the UK, they now have an office in Barcelona.

So what’s next for Auvik?

“We have the standard aspirations of taking over the world, and painting it purple,” Morin said. Purple, as one might guess from Morin’s shirt, is Auvik’s corporate colour.