A10 Networks™, the technology leader in Application Networking, today announced the aCloud ecosystem initiative based on its AX Series Application Delivery Controller (ADC) platform. The aCloud initiative consists of a combination of AX ADC form factors and management tools for Cloud Service Providers, enabling them to create elastic pay-as-you grow environments and billing infrastructures.

Cloud Service Providers seek to fulfill increasing computing demands as enterprises move IT resources to the Cloud for operational efficiency, increased internal IT agility and reduced total cost of ownership (TCO). This need has created a critical requirement to provide advanced features for components in the Cloud, so that advantages with best of breed internal deployments are not lost. With the AX Series’ comprehensive advanced Layer 4-7 load balancing, application acceleration and security features, customers and Cloud Service Providers can rapidly build cloud environments and deploy on-demand; offering premium feature sets at a competitive price.

“With the rapid adoption of Cloud Computing, customers are turning to Cloud Service Providers to enable their business services without compromising on features and functionality,” said Lee Chen, Founder and CEO of A10 Networks. “With our new aCloud ecosystem, we have made it easy for Service Providers to offer differentiated Application Networking services, going beyond simple load balancing to give their customers a range of flexible options.”

The aCloud Application Delivery ecosystem includes three key components:

• AX Series
  • SoftAX Virtual Machines: Software-based ADC, which can be installed on commodity hardware atop a hypervisor in less than 10 minutes; customers reduce hardware costs, deliver on data center consolidation initiatives and increase flexibility.
  • AX Series Hardware Appliances: Enables the highest-performance Application Networking with superior reliability and energy efficiency. In addition to the comprehensive Layer 4-7 feature set, the appliances offer flexible virtualization technologies such as Virtual Chassis System (aVCS) for ~1 Tb of scalability, and multi-tenancy with Application Delivery Partitions (ADPs) to service 100s of separate customers on 1U or 2U AX platforms.
  • AX Series AX-V Hardware Appliances: Combining the benefits of SoftAX with the resiliency and predictability of the AX appliances, AX-V offers a hybrid platform for a turnkey deployment and guaranteed performance, including VMware certification.
• Management Platform and Components
  • aGalaxy Management Server:
    • Highly scalable management solution for all AX Series hardware and software appliances
  • Cloud Licensing Infrastructure:
    • Enables automatic SoftAX deployment and licensing based on Cloud Service Provider policy
    • Enables a true “Pay-as-you-grow and/or go” infrastructure with integrated billing
  • aXAPI for Custom Management: REST-based XML API compliments GUI and CLI administration options to offer a comprehensive set of management functions that quickly integrate for maximum flexibility into any custom Cloud Service Provider management platform.
• The Cloud Service Provider: Providers offering A10’s solutions can leverage components to deliver on customer requirements to power flexible and feature-rich environments.

“ViaWest is a leader in the managed service market, and we have standardized on a combination of A10’s AX Series hardware and SoftAX virtual appliances for our Cloud offerings,” said Jason Carolan, CTO of ViaWest. “We chose A10 for many reasons including tight SoftAX integration with VMware vCloud Director, flexibility of hardware and software platforms and the advanced feature set. All of these advantages directly translate to value we can offer to our customers.”

“The AX Series hardware appliance’s unique multi-tenancy features were a perfect fit for our network and customers,” said Jeffrey Papen, Founder and CEO of Peak Hosting. “Since deploying the AX Series into Peak's Always UP Network℠ we can offer advanced functionality to our customers, which allows us to provide a richer set of offerings to solve our customers’ business challenges and reduce their operational costs.”

Availability

The aCloud licensing infrastructure will be available in Q1 2013. To participate in the beta please contact A10 Networks.

The SoftAX trial version is available for immediate download at: https://www.a10networks.com/softax_trial_license/

About A10 Networks

A10 Networks was founded in Q4 2004 with a mission to provide innovative networking and security solutions. A10 Networks makes high-performance products that help organizations accelerate, optimize and secure their applications. A10 Networks is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia and Singapore. For more information, visit: http://www.a10networks.com

aCloud, ACOS, aFleX, aXAPI, aVCS, Virtual Chassis, SoftAX, and aFlow are registered trademarks of A10 Networks.