Rumor: Cisco To Stop Selling ACE?

Update 9/17/12: It’s true. The Cisco ACE is dead.

Filed under things that make you go Hrmm…. I saw this on @IPv6freely’s (Chris Jones) twitter feed, and article in Barron’s stating that Cisco has told its sales people to stop selling the ACE application delivery controller load balancer.

The article mentions specifically the ACE30 module, the current service module. It makes no mention of the ACE 4710 appliance. Also, it’s just a rumor, so while interesting, certainly nothing definitive.

My speculation? Of course, it could be utter bullshit. I haven’t found or heard anything to substantiate it. Though even if it were true, it wouldn’t necessarily mean Cisco has given up on ACE. It could signal that Cisco is no longer interested in selling the ACE30 service module, preferring instead the ACE 4710 appliance and/or gearing up for a service module for the Nexus 7000 series. They could be making a move to go all virtual, with the vACE to possibly be announced shortly. (I heard November 2012, but just a rumor.)

Less likely, but certainly possible, is that Cisco is going to drop the ACE. It seems particularly unlikely given that the ACE was featured in the CCIE Data Center lab blueprint. However, the lab exam was moved to December, it could be they’re re-tooling it for an ACE-less lab (the ACE looked to be a relatively minor part of the lab anyway).

The ACE doesn’t have many fans outside of Cisco (or even inside, honestly). Though I wouldn’t say the ACE is a bad load balancer. It does what it’s supposed to do, and it does it relatively well. It’s just that it’s been… disappointing. It’s been a bit of a disappointment, in terms of market share and features. The ACE’s market share continues to drop, and in a competitive environment (F5, A10, Citrix NetScaler, etc.) ACE just can’t go toe-to-toe in features (especially against something like iRules/aFlex, FIPS, IPv6, etc.).

Tony, I find your lack of faith in ACE disturbing

So we’ll wait and see.