CA Acquires Layer 7 To Bolster Cloud, Mobile Security Strategy
CA Technologies announced the acquisition of Layer 7 Technologies in a bid to boost its application delivery and cloud and mobile security strategy.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The announcement was made at the 2013 CA World user conference, being held this week in Las Vegas.
CA said the acquisition complements its CA SiteMinder single sign-on server for Web access management and CA LISA for DevOps and Web application delivery.
[Related: CA Technologies Sues AppDynamics For Patent Infringement ]
Vancouver-based Layer 7 Technologies has its roots in supporting service-oriented architectures by managing and delivering XML Web services that feed application program interfaces. The company has focused on delivering Web services securely in cloud-based scenarios, said Jason Bloomberg, president of McLean, Va.-based research firm ZapThink, A Dovel Technologies Company.
CA's Web, Mobile and XML Firewall addresses XML Web services security for cloud, mobile and composite applications. The company also sells secure gateway technology, which provides Web application firewall capabilities to protect application interfaces from SQL injection and denial-of-service attacks.
"This helps round out CA's API management and cloud story because one of key capabilities is cloud governance," Bloomberg said. "Much of it is about key management and policy enforcement for the cloud."
Layer 7 sells both on-premise and cloud-based software and has faced increasing pressure from competition, including Dublin-based Vordel, a division of Axway, and Intel, each of which offer similar API management capabilities and functionality, Bloomberg said. All of the firms have also added support for APIs extending enterprise capabilities to mobile environments, he said.
CA said its application delivery, governance and management would be improved by the acquisition. API calls have increased significantly with the growing use of mobile devices and activities, said Mike Denning, security general manager at CA Technologies.
"Without API security and management, thousands of business services are vulnerable to disruption," Denning said in a statement.
CA said it will also use Layer 7 Technologies to offer secure and efficient mobile application acceleration capabilities. The company also announced the availability of its mobile device management suite, choosing to partner with SAP to offer the functionality. CA MDM is being sold in both a software-as-a-service or on-premise models. It addresses BYOD with device enrollment, configuration and a self-service enterprise app store, the company said.
CA is partnering with SAP Afaria, formerly Sybase, which was acquired by the German enterprise resource planning system vendor in 2010. CA also sells mobile application management, content management and services management capabilities.
PUBLISHED APRIL 24, 2013