Cisco has confirmed it will end development of its Application Control Engine (ACE) load-balancer products.
While only a back-alley in the Borg’s sprawling product line, the confirmation that ACE will be added to the Cisco end-of-life list will be a fillip for companies like F5, Radware, Riverbed Networks, Brocade, Citrix and others.
ACE products are modules for Cisco Catalyst 6500 switches and Cisco 7600 routers, providing load-balancing, content-switching, application acceleration and security capabilities. ACE manages up to 16 Gbps of application traffic in a single module, in a single Catalyst 6500 switch chassis, according to Cisco.
As far back as 2009, Gartner was calling ACE a “legacy platform”, predicting that Cisco would have to cede the application acceleration market to specialists. According to this NASDAQ note, Topeka Capital Markets says the product’s market share was already in decline.
While the ACE series hasn’t yet been given an end-of-life date, customers will need to look at migration options ahead of the product’s retirement.
ACE will have good company on the EOL list, where it will share billing with a small host of other content engine products.
The confirmation that the product was being axed came via CRN, which was told by Cisco: “Cisco routinely reviews its business to determine where it needs to align investment based on growth opportunities. In assessing the data center market, which is undergoing a fundamental transformation within virtualization, cloud, and new service delivery models, Cisco has decided it will not develop further generations of its ACE load-balancing products.”
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