F5 has acquired MantisNet, a specialist in cloud-native observability and real-time community intelligence, in a transfer designed to develop the capabilities of the F5 Utility Supply and Safety Platform (ADSP). Trying forward, F5 says the combination will enable clients throughout industries to maneuver to cloud-native architectures with better confidence.
With observability deeply embedded within the software supply and safety stack, organizations can anticipate extra dependable automation, enhanced safety for encrypted site visitors, and accelerated deployment of companies in environments starting from inner enterprise functions to public 5G infrastructure.
The deal would underscore a rising development in enterprise IT: as organizations migrate to cloud-native architectures, visibility and safety at scale have grow to be mission-critical necessities that legacy monitoring instruments can’t absolutely deal with.
MantisNet, acknowledged as a pioneer in leveraging prolonged Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) expertise, brings a kernel-level method to community telemetry. This allows enterprises, telecom operators, managed service suppliers, and authorities organizations to realize real-time visibility into encrypted and ephemeral containerized site visitors – an space that has historically introduced blind spots for typical monitoring options. By embedding MantisNet’s expertise into ADSP, F5 goals to bridge these visibility gaps whereas sustaining excessive efficiency and automation throughout dynamic workloads.
The acquisition comes as enterprises speed up adoption of Kubernetes and different cloud-native applied sciences to realize scalability and agility. Containerized Community Features (CNFs) have gotten central to this shift, providing speedy deployment, resilience, and DevOps alignment. Nevertheless, these advantages introduce challenges in monitoring and securing short-lived, encrypted communications inside containers. F5’s integration of MantisNet’s Containerized Visibility Material (CVF) addresses this straight, delivering telemetry and analytics optimized for cloud-native and 5G environments.
MantisNet Powers Steady Community Visibility
Trade observers word that MantisNet’s expertise may be in comparison with shifting from static surveillance cameras to an clever, built-in monitoring grid. Moderately than capturing fragments of site visitors information, MantisNet repeatedly tracks, analyzes, and contextualizes flows throughout the complete community, offering actionable insights in actual time. This depth of visibility turns into particularly crucial in sectors equivalent to telecommunications, the place operators are deploying superior 5G companies, or in enterprises managing multi-tenant environments with advanced safety necessities.
The combination is predicted to bolster F5 merchandise equivalent to BIG-IP Subsequent for Kubernetes, BIG-IP Superior Firewall Supervisor, BIG-IP Coverage Enforcement Supervisor, and BIG-IP Service-Grade NAT. By feeding low-latency telemetry from MantisNet into these options, F5 guarantees sooner detection, automated coverage enforcement, and the flexibility to safe east-west site visitors inside containerized programs – site visitors that conventional instruments typically overlook. For regulated industries, the platform may even assist compliance wants by way of programmatic packet seize and historic circulate preservation.
F5 positions the mixed providing as greater than a monitoring device. By linking observability with coverage engines and automation capabilities, it delivers an end-to-end pipeline from perception to motion. Prospects are anticipated to learn from sooner rollouts of next-generation companies, improved detection occasions, and diminished operational complexity. The corporate sees the unified stack as an enabler for enterprises and telecom operators alike to ship differentiated digital companies whereas preserving safety and management.
This acquisition additionally indicators the growing significance of eBPF-powered observability within the enterprise and telecom panorama. As networks evolve towards containerized, virtualized, and software-defined architectures, organizations are demanding options that may preserve tempo with each the size and the encryption inherent in fashionable workloads. For F5, including MantisNet enhances its strategic positioning as a supplier of full-stack visibility mixed with cloud-native agility.
At its core, the acquisition highlights a elementary actuality of right this moment’s digital economic system: visibility is now not non-compulsory. As enterprises, governments, and repair suppliers scale into cloud-native and 5G ecosystems, the mixture of F5’s ADSP with MantisNet’s telemetry capabilities affords a pathway to handle complexity, implement coverage in actual time, and safe site visitors that has traditionally been invisible. For a world trade grappling with each alternative and threat, the deal represents an effort to show observability right into a strategic asset somewhat than an operational afterthought.
