Zeus Technology buys application firewall vendor Art of Defence

Zeus Technology has bought application firewall vendor Art of Defence for an undisclosed amount and promises tighter integration with Zeus' application delivery controller.

Zeus has already been selling the Art of Defence software as an add-on module for its Zeus Traffic Manager ADC, so there will be no immediate change for customers.

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But over time, Zeus says it plans to better integrate the two so they can scale more smoothly, perform faster and be managed more simply.

Zeus has been getting more and more demand for the application firewall module, driven by businesses handling credit card transactions trying to comply with PCI/DSS standards, says the company's CEO Jim Darragh. It has also had success selling the firewall as a stand-alone product, he says.

He says the two companies have the same design philosophy, creating software-only products that can be deployed on commodity appliances or in virtual environments rather than as physical appliances. In that way the products can serve to protect and boost performance of cloud resources, he says.

Darragh says Zeus will be able to move more quickly to implement firewall innovations and integration with the ADC.

Zeus, which doubled its U.S. sales force during the last year, says owning Art of Defence gives it an entry point into Germany, which is part of the company's expansion strategy.

Art of Defence has 12 employees and is based in Germany.

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