Cisco revealed its plans to acquire ClearAccess today, a well-known provider of customer premise equipment (CPE) management solutions that address the growing need for automatic subscriber activation, remote CPE management, and new incremental revenue streams.  Founded as a broadband application and solution provider, ClearAccess offers advanced broadband solutions to worldwide enterprises along with TR-069-based software for the provisioning and management of residential and mobile devices.

This acquisition will bring ClearAccess’s capabilities of software development to Cisco’s premise, to work with its network management specialties. This will enable service providers to better deliver, manage and monetize their products, while helping to improve operational efficiencies and the customer experience. Not to mention, the addition of software development capabilities will augment Cisco Prime — Cisco’s network management software portfolio.

“The ClearAccess acquisition reinforces Cisco’s commitment to service providers by accelerating software architectural advancements in mobility, cloud and managed devices, and video,” said Jamie Lerner, vice president and general manager, Cisco Network Management Technology Group, Service Provider Applications.

“ClearAccess provides a critical technology that will advance Cisco’s mission to offer service providers a complete set of tools to manage their networks, within the home and across any connected device, amid the ongoing proliferation in network traffic.”

While the financial terms of the deal are undisclosed, it is expected to complete in the fourth quarter of this year. Acquiring ClearAccess is not the only step Cisco is taking toward its expansion, as the company is actively spilling into some of the newer segments of IT that overlap with its core market.

The cloud is one example, and now there’s mobile. Cisco introduced two IT support and management tools recently: Prime Assurance Manager and Prime Infrastructure. The company has also unveiled Unified Wireless Network Software 7.2, a LAN soultion that can now scale one controller to support up to 30,000 end points. Sounds like Cisco is in full form to expand its portfolio capabilities in more than one way.

Other recent acquisitions in the tech industry include Juniper Networks, which recently acquired Mykonos Software for about $80 million in cash. Mykonos offers an Intrusion Deception System designed to protect web-based applications “among the largest unprotected attack surfaces,” according to Juniper research.

The Mykonos products use a multi-tactic series of technology to deceive the would-be hacker into detection and with wasted efforts on built-in traps, among other sophisticated tactics. With this dynamic security component, Juniper steps up to a new level, now able to protect the ever-increasing web market and countless app/cloud environments right at the network level, on a proactive and innovative basis.

Juniper has raised the possibility of a realization of security objectives within the burgeoning cloud, apps, virtual and internet environments. It appears to be a smart move that, once integrated and developed, fills one of the most critical vulnerabilities in the enterprise.