"You really want to optimize the use of all [of] this infrastructure," such as an ESB, appliance or a security gateway purchased for individual strengths, Horst said.

"From the end-user standpoint, it's easier to set up and administer and you still get the optimum use of the infrastructure purchased," he said.

F5 sees advantages in the new integration between its product and AmberPoint.

"The benefit is many of our customers are deploying and designing SOA infrastructure today," said Jeff Browning, F5 director of product management. "What's exciting about what AmberPoint is doing is by integrating the SOA execution and runtime management with the underlying hardware and network infrastructure required for enterprise-grade applications, now the application and the Web services tier is going to be able to work in concert with the underlying network and server infrastructure."

Version 5.1 of AmberPoint's platform ships this quarter. It is priced at US$35,000 per CPU.