Cisco To Buy Kubernetes Startup Replex To ‘Grow’ AppDynamics
Cisco is investing millions to boost and innovate its application performance monitoring software business AppDynamics, including today’s announcement to buy Kubernetes startup Replex.
Cisco is diving deeper into Kubernetes with its plan to purchase startup Replex to help cloud-native customers better predict costs and improve transparency across Kubernetes environments.
“The acquisition of Replex will help AppDynamics grow its product and engineering talent with a view toward accelerating and expanding product capabilities that observe enterprise-scale, cloud-native environments,” said Linda Tong, general manager of Cisco’s AppDynamics business in a blog post today. “Replex’s deep expertise in Kubernetes, real-time data extraction and analytics will further strengthen AppDynamics’ world-class product and engineering team as we accelerate the delivery of Cisco’s Full-Stack Observability vision.”
Cisco is investing hundreds of millions on its Full-Stack Observability strategy, which includes its application performance monitoring software arm AppDynamics as the business officially goes all-in on the channel.
Cisco unveiled plans today to acquire Kubernetes software startup Replex, which has dual headquarters in San Francisco and Germany. Earlier this month, Cisco also completed the acquisition of observability specialist Epsagon for a reported price tag of $500 million.
Financial terms of the Replex deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2016, Replex is a Kubernetes governance and cost-management startup with a platform purpose-built for cloud native infrastructure. Current customers include Panasonic, Vodafone and Sonos.
Replex’s platform aims to give customers a single pane overview of their infrastructure, reduce costs through more efficient capacity planning and get deep insights into the relation between logical application structure and infrastructure, according to the company’s website. The platform is plug-in ready to start gathering data and API-based in order to integrate seamlessly into infrastructure whether it’s a cloud-based service or on-premise solution.
The San Jose, Calif.-based global networking leader said consistent availability and performance of applications both inside and outside of work “have never been more important,” which is why Cisco is doubling down on AppDynamics Business Observability platform as part of its full-stack observability strategy.
This full-stack observability strategy starts with Cisco’s core software-as-a-service solutions AppDynamics, ThousandEyes and Intersight.
“We are delivering a market-leading, enterprise-scale and cloud-native observability platform that will meet the growing demands of global technologists as they navigate increasing IT complexity and data noise. The addition of Replex’s highly skilled team to AppDynamics will enable us to accelerate and broaden the platform’s capabilities and deliver on this strategy,” said Cisco’s Tong.
Cisco this month also acquired Epsagon, who is an expert in distributed tracing solutions for modern application environments and technologies, including containers and serverless environments.
Epsagon aims to complement Cisco’s full-stack observability for cloud-native environments, across multiple telemetry types including metrics, events, logs and traces with support for open standards.
In a blockbuster move for Cisco partners, AppDynamics told CRN that the company is officially going all-in on the channel. Last year, more than 80 percent of AppDynamics business came via channel partners, but the company plans to kick it up to 100 percent.
“We’ve made the decision to become fully partner-centric, just like Cisco,” Mark Maslach, vice president, global channels and strategic alliances for AppDynamics, told CRN. “Now is the perfect time for AppDynamics and our partners to go after this massive market opportunity we have in full stack observability, globally, along with Cisco.”
THE AMRANI GROUP’S ROLE
Situation - After a few years of trying to expand into the US Market, replex hired The Amrani Group to provide fractional US VP of Sales and advisory services to their team.
Challenge - During COVID, The Amrani Group focused primarily on enabling replex to acquire their first customers in the US. Replex sold an enterprise SaaS solution that required deep knowledge of the complex US enterprise sales and procurement cycles. As the CEO Patrick describes in our Video Case Study, there were a lot of sales gurus they met previously who were happy to sell the shovel but weren’t interested in digging.
Solution - Combining a fractional VP of Sales with subject matter experts in Kubernetes and enterprise B2B SaaS, The Amrani Group was able to build a sustainable pipeline, negotiate significant contracts, and close deals with some of the largest companies in the world.
Results - Within 24 months of hiring The Amrani Group replex was successfully acquired Cisco.
Credits
This article was originally posted by The CHANNEL CO. on October 25, 2021. The original article can be viewed at https://www.crn.com/news/networking/cisco-to-buy-kubernetes-startup-replex-to-grow-appdynamics
Other Articles
Cisco Press Release - Cisco Accelerates Innovation of AppDynamics Business Observability Platform with Intent to Acquire replex - https://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco-corporate-news-1021