Following a high-level visit to France, Cisco this week invested in 6WIND, a developer of packet processing software for virtual networks.

6WIND's software runs on Linux-based x86 servers to deliver a range of networking and security protocols and features, and overcome data plane performance issues on multicore architectures. Some of the features the software provides are accelerated virtual networking infrastructure, and routing and IPSec software appliances for bare metal or virtual machine environments.

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Cisco's investment coincides with a visit to French President Francois Hollande by Cisco CEO John Chambers and CEO designate Chuck Robbins. In February, Cisco announced a $100 million investment in France to digitize the country and spur business growth.

The amount of the investment in 6WIND was not disclosed. The company is based near Paris with regional offices in China, Japan, South Korea and the U.S.

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