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Cisco Isovalent Load Balancer takes aim at Broadcom's VMware

The new product promises to simplify disparate network traffic across cloud, hybrid and on-premises workloads.

Shane Snider
By
Published: 11 Jun 2025

Cisco on Wednesday launched its Isovalent Load Balancer tool to help spread out tangled internet traffic and data that businesses manage across different platforms.

Enterprises are running an ever-increasing number of cloud, mobile, AI and web applications across many servers, which can lead to a snarled data mess and create complications that can spike IT costs. Cisco said its load balancer acts like an internet traffic cop of sorts, directing users to the proper servers and preventing overload.

The release, coinciding with Cisco Live in San Diego, also takes direct aim at capturing a segment of Broadcom's VMware customers who don't want to be locked into a single vendor or subscription service.

The Isovalent Load Balancer is a standalone product and works across different cloud platforms, data centers and Kubernetes systems. The tool leverages Isovalent's Cilium and extended Berkeley Packet Filter technology, which offer network security and observability in cloud-native infrastructures. The load balancer enables eBPF use across platforms through APIs or Kubernetes tools.

Thomas Graf, co-founder and CTO of Isovalent at Cisco, said the company is responding to demand for efficiency and cost-effectiveness in network and data management.

"The motivation was to create consistent load balancing across any environment -- a consolidation of multiple different layers," Graf said.

He said the load balancer offers "removal of developer friction -- where the real cost is ... and you get that modern, cloud-native API for application teams. That's the magical part: removing developer friction. You don't have to retrain people. We are meeting operational teams where they are and leveling up the experience for application teams."

Cisco is offering a trial of the Isovalent Load Balancer, which the company said will reduce costs, maximize security and observability, future-proof multi-cloud and Kubernetes infrastructure, and speed up application delivery.

A play to compete with Broadcom's VMware

Cisco made waves with its acquisitions of Splunk for $28 billion and Isovalent for $650 million.

Both buys displayed Cisco's appetite to compete in the observability market. They also positioned Cisco to compete directly with Broadcom's VMware for multi-cloud networking and security. Broadcom's $61 billion acquisition of VMware proved controversial as the company moved to bundled, subscription-based licensing, which particularly affected smaller enterprises.

Graf said the Isovalent Load Balancer was in part prompted by complaints from disgruntled VMware customers who don't want to be tied to Broadcom's subscription model. The tool provides those customers with an alternative to VMware's Avi Load Balancer. "That's the high-level motivation," he said.

Zeus Kerravala, an analyst and founder of ZK Research, said the Isovalent Load Balancer will be an attractive option for many enterprises.

"The path that VMware has gone down is to really lock those [Avi Load Balancer] deployments in their [private cloud platform, VMware Cloud Foundation]," Kerravala said. "And I think that just opens the world up for somebody to step in and grab some market share. I think Cisco has a really good chance to grab some share from VMware here."

He added, "The Isovalent acquisition has become very interesting because it's become one of the cornerstones of Cisco's security strategy. Cisco's making the most of eBPFs, which are a really cool technology ... they see security needing to change in the AI era. And they are using Isovalent as a building block."

Broadcom did not respond to a request for comment.

Shane Snider, a veteran journalist with more than 20 years of experience, covers IT infrastructure at Informa TechTarget.

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