F5 Networks Acquires Software Defined Networking Startup LineRate Systems

F5 Networks on Monday announced that it has agreed to acquire LineRate Systems, a developer of software defined networking (SDN) services, for an undisclosed sum.

As a result of the acquisition, F5 gains access to LineRate’s layer 7+ networking services technology, intellectual property, and engineering talent, the company said. Furthermore, LineRate’s technology will help extend F5’s security products into the software-defined data center.

“‘Application Layer’ SDN will give customers the ability to provide security services which are impossible in L2-3 SDN, such as application firewalling, access management, and protection from today’s sophisticated APT and DDoS attacks,” Andrew Stern, VP of Corporate Development at F5 Networks told SecurityWeek. “Without a proxy capable of performing threat detection with application awareness – and on every single request and response – networks are vulnerable to a host of today’s most pernicious attacks.”

“Critical to the success of SDN architectures are security, acceleration, optimization, and intelligent traffic management services at the application layer,” the company explained in a statement. “Application-layer services will be vital to meet customers’ expectations of flexibility, scale, and performance, and to provide significant competitive advantages. The LineRate acquisition aligns with F5’s vision for application control plane architecture and goal of delivering application-layer SDN services to bring superior agility, application intelligence, and programmability to software defined data centers.

Based near Boulder, Colorado, LineRate’s software defined solution is an early-stage product, which will become an important part of F5’s development initiatives focused on software defined data centers, the company said.

“In order to reap the benefits of software defined data centers, programmable, scalable network services must be present throughout the entire network stack—up to the application layer,” said Manish Vachharajani, Co-Founder and Chief Software Architect at LineRate Systems. “We recognize that the SDN fabric may be good at layer 2-4, but ultimately customers care most about the applications. The LineRate team is excited to join F5 and looks forward to helping F5 accelerate development initiatives in this important market.”

Related: Software Defined Networking – A New Network Weakness?