A10 Networks has acquired startup Appcito to run faster in the race with rivals to deliver application delivery controllers to enterprises building or subscribing to cloud-computing platforms.
A10, which announced the deal Tuesday, declined to disclose financial details. With the acquisition, the San Jose, Calif.-based company hopes to speed up the delivery of cloud-based ADC services that can compete with similar products from competitors, such as F5 Networks and Radware.
"They all see the same cloud dynamics at play in the market, and they're positioning accordingly," Brad Casemore, an analyst at IDC, said of the three competitors. "With the Appcito acquisition, A10 has moved right into the forefront of the frame, but the others are not standing still."
IT infrastructure spending on public and private clouds is growing much faster than purchasing for traditional non-cloud environments. Organizations will spend $37.1 billion this year on cloud computing, an increase of 15.5% over last year, according to IDC. Spending on traditional computing is expected to decline by 4.4%.
With that trend in mind, A10 bought Appcito, based in Santa Clara, Calif., to accelerate the work it started last year to make its ADC services more compatible with cloud environments. In January 2015, the vendor re-architected its Thunder ADC to make it easier for companies to insert Layer 4-7 services in cloud applications.
Appcito ADC services designed for cloud containers, microservices
Appcito technology aims to work with the containers and micro-services found in cloud environments, not traditional applications running on dedicated or virtualized servers in non-cloud data centers. Appcito lets developers use a cloud-based controller to orchestrate and manage lightweight ADCs that provide the network services. The software, which Appcito sells on a subscription basis, also provides analytics for performance monitoring and troubleshooting.
Organizations are starting to look toward ADC vendors to provide services in nontraditional deployment mechanisms.
Andrew Lerneranalyst, Gartner
ADC as a service is what companies that are building or using cloud computing want from their vendors, Andrew Lerner, an analyst at Gartner, said. "Organizations are starting to look toward ADC vendors to provide services in nontraditional deployment mechanisms."
Appcito's ADC services are more in line than A10's products with DevOps development for the cloud that blends tasks performed by application development and systems operations teams. "This should help A10 to penetrate app-centric and DevOps buyers, beyond their existing customer base which is heavily centered around infrastructure-centric buyers," Lerner said.
A10 trails rivals
A10 is trailing competitors F5 and Radware, which can deliver an ADC as a service today, Lerner said. Services available from the rivals include a web application firewall and protection against distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDOS).
A10 plans to integrate Appcito's products with its own so a company can have one view of ADCs running in traditional and cloud environments. The vendor plans to have integrated technology available by early next year, said former Appcito CEO Kamal Anand, who is general manager of A10's new cloud business unit.
"From a go forward plan, the controller will be managing, controlling and delivering deep visibility across that portfolio of ADCs -- whether it's lightweight ADCs for cloud-native applications or the traditional ADC," Anand said.
Appcito has sold its service for only a couple of quarters, Anand said. The company has fewer than 20 customers, all of them in social media, financial services or e-commerce. A10 plans to hire the company's roughly 30 employees.
A10 is mostly found in organizations with large-scale application delivery requirements, according to Gartner. Many of its customers are in North America and Japan.
