Infoblox acquires Kentik to strengthen network observability

The consolidation of the network monitoring and performance analytics software market continues. Infoblox, a specialist in DNS, DHCP, and IP address management (IPAM) in hybrid and multicloud environments, is acquiring Kentik, a network observability platform founded in 2014. Kentik has raised over $100 million in venture capital and provides real-time visibility into network traffic, integrating flow data, routing information, and telemetry from datacenter, cloud, WAN, and public internet environments. In recent years, Kentik added an AI assistant, AI Advisor, to speed up analyses. Infoblox, which has managed DNS, DHCP, and IPAM services for over two decades, launched its SaaS platform Universal DDI in 2024. Mukesh Gupta, Infoblox's chief product officer, noted that Infoblox knows what devices are on the network but not who communicates with whom, which Kentik's flow data can provide. Avi Freedman, Kentik's co-founder and CEO, said talks had been ongoing for years, driven by mutual customers requesting integration. The combined technologies will bring more features to users, such as Infoblox's 'IQ Actions' that automatically detect and investigate issues using large language models (LLMs). Kentik's traffic data will extend this to security incidents, enabling identification of devices communicating with command-and-control (C&C) servers and assessing incident scope. Kentik's AI Advisor is evolving to execute tasks autonomously, with DDI information helping to realize this vision. Freedman believes the combined platform will deliver what customers want.