Cisco announced today that it intends to acquire Composite Software, a privately-held data virtualization software and services company. Cisco aims to pay $180 millino in cash and retention-based incentives for all shares of the company.

Cisco says the acquisition builds on its framework for a “unified platform” and its software services strategy with the recent acquisition of SolveDirect.

“Composite’s data virtualization solution combined with SolveDirect’s process integration platform will provide cross-domain data and workflow integration capabilities to enable real time business insights and operations,” the company says.

“Cisco’s strategy is to create a next generation IT model that provides highly differentiated solutions to help solve our customers’ most challenging business problems,” said Cisco President and COO Gary Moore. “By combining our network expertise with the performance of Cisco’s Unified Computing System and Composite’s software, we will provide customers with instant access to data analysis for greater business intelligence.”

Cisco expects the acquisition to close in the first quarter of fiscal year 2014.

Composite Software is based in San Mateo. Its employees will join the Cisco services team under Mala Anand and Mike Flannagan.