In December, 2015, fast-growing networking vendor Cradlepoint ended its red-hot year with the acquisition of software-defined networking (SDN) specialist Pertino. Boise, Idaho-based Cradlepoint will leverage Pertino's cloud technology to enable customers to rapidly deploy software-defined overlay network services to support 4G/LTE mobility, Internet of Things and security-related solutions, according to the company. "We are in rapid growth mode and there are huge benefits for our partners as we bring in and integrate Pertino," said Ian Pennell, chief marketing officer at Cradlepoint. "They'll use a Pertino-Cradlepoint combination to allow customers to rapidly deploy highly scalable overlay networks. … We see so many cases of where customers want to go this way because it's just so much easier, and our partners don't need too much in-depth knowledge of how to set and configure it, because so much of the complexity is handled by the cloud."