F5 has acquired MantisNet, a specialist in eBPF-powered observability and real-time network intelligence, to deepen the capabilities of the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP). The move gives telecom providers, enterprises, government agencies, and service providers stronger visibility and control as they scale into cloud-native environments.
Closing the Gaps in Cloud-Native Monitoring
The move to Kubernetes and containerized architectures brings speed and scalability but also new blind spots. Cloud-native network functions (CNFs) give teams agility and resilience, but monitoring traffic inside containers - especially encrypted east-west flows- remains a challenge. Traditional tools were built for static infrastructure and struggle to keep up with the short-lived, dynamic nature of modern workloads.
"Integrating MantisNet’s eBPF-powered observability provides enterprises and telecom providers with real-time, granular visibility into traffic flows across cloud-native, virtual environments and 5G core networks,”
Ahmed Guetari, Vice President and General Manager, Service Providers for F5 told ChannelE2E.
“By operating at the kernel level, eBPF delivers deep insights without intrusive agents or resource-heavy sidecars, allowing teams to monitor east-west as well as north-south traffic at scale. This makes it possible to spot anomalies earlier, detect lateral movement in microservices, and respond to threats with more speed and accuracy,” Guetari said.
What MantisNet Brings to F5
At the core of MantisNet’s technology is its Containerized Visibility Fabric (CVF), which delivers lightweight, scalable monitoring for dynamic workloads. CVF provides real-time telemetry without sidecars or agents, making it particularly suited for 5G and cloud-native environments. Integrated into F5 solutions like BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes and CNFs such as BIG-IP DNS, AFM, PEM, and CGNAT, MantisNet expands observability across user, control, and application planes.
F5 is positioning this acquisition as a way to reduce tool sprawl for customers.
“Tool sprawl has become a major challenge as organizations balance multiple monitoring, observability, and security platforms,” Guetari explained.
“Our approach is to embed observability natively into the Application Delivery and Security Platform, so customers don’t have to stitch together separate tools just to achieve visibility. This reduces overhead, simplifies deployments, and ensures insights are unified within a single control plane,” he added.
Opportunities for MSPs, MSSPs
The integration also opens the door for managed security service providers.
“MSPs and MSSPs gain a powerful new capability with MantisNet’s eBPF-powered observability integrated into F5’s platform,” said Guetari.
“They can now provide customers with high-fidelity, continuous monitoring of both application and network-level traffic across multicloud and 5G, without the overhead of installing and managing agents everywhere. This enables MSSPs to deliver faster and more accurate detection of threats, as well as differentiated services such as proactive threat hunting and SLA-driven performance monitoring.”
What This Means Going Forward
For F5 customers, the acquisition builds a more complete platform for deploying, observing, and securing modern networks. Telecom operators gain the ability to manage traffic at 5G scale. Enterprises can improve compliance and governance. Public sector organizations can strengthen visibility into sensitive workloads. By embedding observability into the network fabric and linking it to automated enforcement, F5 is positioning ADSP as a single stack that unites agility, policy, and security across industries.
