Cisco Makes SOA Play With Acquisition

Redwood City, Calif.-based Reactivity makes appliances for securing and managing XML traffic on the network and simplifying the deployment of service-oriented architecture-related services. Its product line includes the Reactivity XML Gateway and the Reactivity XML Manager.

The acquisition supports Cisco's Service-Oriented Network Architecture strategy and its Application Networking Services portfolio of application acceleration, WAN optimization and Application-Oriented Networking products.

"Customers continue to validate our ongoing strategy of building more application services on the network platform," Jayshree Ullal, senior vice president of Cisco's Datacenter Switching and Security Technology Group, said in a statement. "Reactivity, together with our Application Control Engine [ACE], provides a highly capable solution for customers' application delivery needs in the data center."

Plans call for the Reactivity team and products to be integrated into Cisco's Datacenter Switching and Security Technology Group, reporting to Ullal.

The acquisition deal, in which San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco agreed to pay about $135 million in cash and assumed options, is expected to close in Cisco's fiscal third quarter, which ends April 28. Reactivity was founded in 1998 and has 56 employees.