F5 Networks is acquiring Volterra, a privately held, distributed cloud services platform, in a deal valued at about $500 million.

With the addition of Volterra’s technology platform, F5 Networks is creating an edge platform built for enterprises and service providers. It will be security-first and app-driven.

The boards of directors of both companies have approved the F5 Networks-Volterra transaction. It should close this quarter.

Lisa Citron is vice president of worldwide channel sales F5 Networks.

F5’s Lisa Citron

“F5 and Volterra will enable partners to provide products and services to help our joint customer focus on delivering immersive digital experiences, leaving the security, infrastructure and performance needs to F5 and their trusted channel adviser,” she said.

Volterra’s channel go to market (GTM) has only a few partners signed to date. F5’s Unity+ partner program will feature its products post closing.

Platform will Transform Leadership

Volterra enables a new Edge 2.0 open edge platform.

“With Volterra, F5 will create the first Edge 2.0 platform that will address enterprise challenges inherent with the first- and second-era edge solutions for building, running and securing apps,” Citron said. “The edge offers incredible promise of low-latency performance and being closer to the end user.”

The combination of Volterra’s capabilities with F5’s solutions will unlock an “unmatched” ability to create unified app security and delivery across environments, she said. And it will do this without dependence on a CDN architecture with point of presence (POP) infrastructure demands.

“With our platform, we will extend F5’s application security leadership to the edge, thereby expanding our combined reach in the fastest-growing segment of F5’s $28 billion 2023 total addressable market,” said Ankur Singla, Volterra’s founder and CEO.

In November, F5 unveiled BIG-IP Service Proxy for Kubernetes (SPK) and Carrier-Grade Aspen Mesh. The two infrastructure solutions aim to support the deployment and operation of cloud-native 5G standalone core networks.