Switch vendors dabbling in security is nothing new, and this trend continues as Citrix’s NetScaler division and Force10 Networks each announced plans this week to buy out smaller security start-ups.
Citrix’s is buying Teros, a maker of XML security and application firewall software, which will be integrated into Citrix’s NetScaler line of application switches. Force10 is buying MetaNetworks, a maker of IPS technology that can supposedly inspect and block traffic on a network pipe as large as 10G bit/sec – which is Force10’s specialty. Neither acquiring vendor disclosed the price of their respective deal.
Teros makes the Security Application Gateway, a software-based security appliance that the company says can block attacks against corporate Web-based applications. The box inspects HTTP and XML traffic streams for suspicious activity and unauthorized protocol schemas, and can block or filter such attacks.Networks World’s test of this product.)
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This XML inspection and security capability will be rolled into NetScaler’s line of application acceleration switches, according to Wes Wasson, vice president of marketing, Application Networking Group, Citrix Systems. In addition to securing XML traffic, he says, the Teros technology in the future could also be used on Citrix NetScaler switches to accelerate and optimize XML applications.
According to Wasson, NetScaler was eyeing an acquisition of Teros, of Santa Clara, before the application switch maker was bought by Citrix in June for around $300 million. The fact that NetScaler is now a part of a company with more than half a billion in cash helped accelerate the deal, he adds.
The Teros buy also brings Citrix up to speed with top rival F5, which acquired application firewall vendor Magnifire for $29 million last year, as well as other application acceleration/firewall vendors, such as NetContinuum. Having XML security/acceleration capabilities also puts Citrix in competition with XML switch start-ups such as Sarvega and DataPower, which was recently acquired by IBM. Cisco’s Application-Oriented Networking (AON) products also compete in this market.
As for Force10’s acquisition of MetaNetworks, the deal will give the 10G Ethernet switch start-up its first IPS/IDS capabilities, according to Andrew Feldman, Force10’s vice president of marketing. According to MetaNetwork’s Web site, its security hardware can perform stateful firewall packet inspection and IDS/IPS capabilities on 10G bit/sec traffic streams without slowing down packets. “Corporate data centers are generating huge amount of traffic,” he says. Adding IPS/IDS to Force10 switches “will allow customers to secure the 10 Gigabit trunks coming into their data centers.”
Force10 will initially offer the MetaNetworks product as a 10G Ethernet IPS/IDS appliance, The technology will eventually be offered as a blade running inside Force10’s E-series switches, Feldman adds.
