Arbor Networks Reels in Ellacoya Networks for Network Visibility

Arbor Networks is making a move to extend its footprint in network security with the planned acquisition of Merrimack, NH-based Ellacoya Networks.

In the proposed acquisition of Ellacoya, Arbor Networks is advancing on its stated strategy to acquire new technologies to augment its own network security tools. The Lexington, Mass.-based company, which specializes in security for service provider networks, is interested Ellacoya’s deep packet inspection technology as a means to expanding its own portfolio of tools addressing denial of service attacks, botnets, worms and network issues such as traffic and routing instability.

“The market is hungry for a solution that brings best of breed security to the broadband edge, to help deal with a wide spectrum of broadband threats such as malware and botnets,” said Paul Morville, vice president of Product Management at Arbor Networks. “Likewise, the service provider industry is evolving rapidly, with converged networking now in full swing.”

Arbor Networks officials said the acquisition positions the company to take advantage of a growing emphasis among service providers on traffic and service management as a means to efficiently and securely deliver new, revenue-generating IP services. The company estimates that the combination of the traditional Infrastructure Security and Service Control and DPI (deep packet inspection) markets creates a $750 million market opportunity in 2008, which should grow to $1.5 billion by the end of the decade.

The merger of Arbor and Ellacoya, will ultimately give birth to a suite of products the company calls Secure Service Control, and customers can expect to see integration start by the end of the year, according to the company. Initially, the newly combined company will sell both Arbor and Ellacoya products together, Morville said.

“In fairly short order though, we’ll start looking to bring Arbor’s security capabilities to the Ellacoya E100 and E30 products,” he said. “Likewise, we’ll enable customers to use the Ellacoya product as an additional data source for Arbor’s Peakflow customers. Arbor is fully committed to the Ellacoya product line and will continue to support them for the foreseeable future. In fact, with the combined reach of our technical sales and support organizations, we expect we will be able to provide even more comprehensive support for our combined customer-base.”

Though the announcement of the acquisition was made Thursday, Morville said the two companies have discussed teaming up for some time.

“We have been engaged in various levels of discussion for well over a year and had explored potential partnership even prior to that; however, we found that the best way to leverage the market opportunity was to combine the companies into a single entity,” he said.