8 Ways Cloud Storage Delivers Business Value

Cisco announced Tuesday it is acquiring application management cloud startup CliQr for $260 million as the networking giant moves deeper into the cloud.

CliQr, which is already integrated into some of Cisco's data center switching and cloud offerings like Application Centric Infrastructure and Unified Computing System, is designed to help users deploy and manage their applications in cloud environments.

"Customers today have to manage a massive number of complex and different applications across many clouds," Rob Salvagno, Cisco corporate development vice president, said in a statement. "With CliQr, Cisco will be able to help our customers realize the promise of the cloud and easily manage the life cycle of their applications on any hybrid cloud environment."

Some of the benefits that Cisco aims to deliver with the CliQr acquisition includes allowing enterprises to create a single application profile and deploy it to a public or private cloud, and to any data center.

CliQr also can automatically apply an enterprise's access control and security policies to an application, and then ensure that those policies move with the app. The CliQr technology will measure app performance in any cloud environment -- and provide a one-click single management interface to control and monitor apps, users, and cloud environments.

The startup's pending acquisition comes just within a year after it announced it had secured a $20 million funding round to help it expand its global distribution and support. The company has raised a total of $38 million in venture funding since its founding in 2010. 

The CliQr deal is expected to close in the third quarter. It would bolster Cisco's cloud efforts, which include the January launch of its Cloud Consumption Services that help enterprises identify and track employees' use of shadow IT.

[Read Cisco Bets Big on IoT With $1.4B Jasper Buy.]

While the CliQr acquisition will be Cisco's first cloud deal of 2016, the networking giant snapped up four cloud companies last year. In October, Cisco acquired cloud-based video platform company 1Mainstream. Other cloud companies it acquired last year were cloud-based file sharing software maker Pawaa, cloud-based software platform company MaintenanceNet, and cloud API platform company Tropo.

In the face of competition from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's Azure and Google Cloud Platform, Cisco is taking a different approach in getting a piece of the cloud market. The networking giant is aiming to be the middleman between these cloud vendor titans and their customers, the Wall Street Journal observed.

Rising stars wanted. Are you an IT professional under age 30 who's making a major contribution to the field? Do you know someone who fits that description? Submit your entry now for InformationWeek's Pearl Award. Full details and a submission form can be found here.