WAN optimization specialist F5 will spend $210 million to acquire privately held Acopia Networks as it attempts to gain a foothold in the file virtualization market. (See F5 to Acquire Acopia.)
The all-cash transaction, which is expected to close before mid-September, dwarfs F5's $43 million acquisition of fellow WAN optimization vendor Swan Labs in late 2005. (See F5 Snaps Up Swan Labs, F5 Completes Swan Buy, and F5 Fires Up WAN Optimization.)
Speaking on a conference call this morning, F5 CEO John McAdam explained that the deal leaves his firm well positioned to handle the current explosion in file-based data.
"File virtualization is an exciting and largely untouched market opportunity," he said, adding that the Acopia acquisition significantly increases F5's reach in the data center.
Although block-based wares such as IBM's SAN Volume Controller (SVC) have dominated the storage virtualization market up to now, more and more users are looking to technologies such as Acopia's to share files globally around their organizations. (See Wiley Picks Acopia, Acopia Helps Cabot Oil & Gas, and Storage Virtualization Edges On.)
With the move to the cloud, CISOs must shift priorities from operating security programs to overseeing (monitoring and auditing) outsourced cybersecurity programs.
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