Emulex to buy Endace for $130M, add network performance management

IDG News Service - Data-center networking vendor Emulex plans to acquire Endace, a maker of network performance management hardware and software, for about $130 million, the companies announced.

The buyout will add Endace's network monitoring appliances, network analytics software and network access switching equipment to Emulex's product lineup. With the addition of Endace, Emulex will be able to offer network equipment that runs at speeds of 10Gbps (bits per second) and up, plus gear that can detect and resolve network problems at those speeds, Emulex CEO Jim McCluney said on a conference call Wednesday. The deal will double Emulex's total addressable market, he said.

Endace uses hardware to monitor network performance, outpacing products from other vendors that rely on software, McCluney said. The company's products can monitor networks running at 100Gbps with 100 percent accuracy, he said.

Data centers commonly use 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections among servers today, and connections at 40Gbps and 100Gbps are also now being adopted. Meanwhile, virtualization is increasing the complexity of data-center networks, making it harder for IT departments to detect and resolve network problems, McCluney said.

Endace's products are designed to provide the performance data to resolve network problems more quickly, in turn helping enterprises maximize the uptime of their data centers. Among the companies that may take advantage of those products are telecommunications carriers, cloud providers and Web 2.0 companies, McCluney said.

Endace is based in New Zealand, with sales and marketing headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. It has about 180 employees. The company has its roots in academic research in New Zealand in the 1990s, was formed in 2001, and went public in 2005 on the AIM exchange in London. In the six months ending Sept. 30, it reported revenue of US$19.2 million. Emulex is based in Costa Mesa, California.

Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's e-mail address is stephen_lawson@idg.com