F5 has acquired cloud-observability vendor MantisNet in a deal that develops F5’s 5G and telecom security reach.

The acquisition will see F5’s cloud-native security solutions and cloud-native network functions (CNFs) merge with MantisNet’s eBPF (extended Berkeley Packet Filter) capabilities.

A Linux kernel technology offering low-level telemetry, eBPF can be used for networking observability and security in CNFs and virtualized network functions (VNFs). MantisNet’s containerized visibility fabric (CVF) combines eBPF with in-node processing and integration with container orchestration systems such as Kubernetes.

With 5G networks heavily reliant on CNFs and VNFs, MantisNet touted a network visibility solution for that domain, alongside a general CNF cybersecurity platform.

Ahmed Guetari, VP and GM of service providers for F5, detailed the vendor’s aim for MantisNet integration into Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP), F5’s suite of CNFs, policy engines, and analytics, to offer visibility into encrypted sessions, including metadata and pre-encryption context from the latest iteration of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol.

The company claimed F5 CNFs, such as BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) and BIG-IP Policy Enforcement Manager (PEM) will gain automated policy enforcement driven by real-time insights. This includes compliance enforcement through programmatic packet capture and historical flow retention, and containerized east-west traffic management.

F5 and the cloud-native journey

The venture targets clients such as telecom operators and enterprises in need of network visibility while transitioning to cloud-native architectures.

The transition to CNFs can be troubled by container traffic’s ephemeral and encrypted nature, something the vendor has been tackling since 2020, when it deployed services designed to support containerized environments for operators deploying a 5G standalone core, including CNF traffic visibility.

With eBPF, networks can benefit from a packet filter built on the Linux kernel, which has optimized network packet traffic delivery across its various updates.

In recent years, the Linux Foundation has stepped up efforts to defragment telecom CNF efforts, joining with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) to provide more clarity for operators and vendors that want to adopt cloud-native principles for their 5G deployments.