Cisco Systems has agreed to acquire Reactivity for $135m in cash and assured options.
Privately held Reactivity develops XML gateways that help enterprise IT departments deploy, secure and accelerate XML and web services, including service oriented architectures (SOA).
The appliance enables the network to identify XML network traffic, and provide service provisioning and versioning as well as standards mediation.
Such tasks are normally performed on a server, which can lead to increased network traffic and latency. By providing automatic translations between standards, the Reactivity device also makes it easier to roll out new services.
XML is a key technology in building network-based services such as SOA. It provides metadata, or data about data, that offers applications and services a standard way to identify a signal without having to look at the actual message.
Cisco touted the acquisition as confirmation of its commitment to its Application Networking Services strategy.
The networking giant seeks to make network traffic more aware of the application that it serves, allowing it to offer different degrees of security and priority.
Reactivity was founded in 1998 and has a staff of 56.
