Like most other incumbent data center vendors, Cisco Systems Inc. is actively working to address the growing adoption of Docker in the enterprise. The company kicked its efforts into high gear today by acquiring a low-level startup called ContainerX Inc. that has developed a platform for managing microservices deployments.

According to Dave Bartoletti of Forrester Research Inc., the software “aims to help IT teams more easily create on-premise container-ready platforms, then give them the same types of operational tools — like balancing workloads properly and isolating workloads from different teams — they enjoy with VM-based platforms now.” ContainerX’s value proposition has won over several enterprise clients since launching the offering into general availability earlier this year. Co-founder Kiran Kamity (fourth from right above) wrote in a blog post this morning that his startup is suspending support for customer deployments now that it has been acquired, but will continue to work on easing the maintance of Docker clusters under Cisco’s wing.

The eight-person ContainerX team is set to join the networking giant’s Platform & Services Group and help with its efforts to build a “comprehensive cloud-native stack” for running Docker clusters. Cisco didn’t go into further detail in the buyout announcement, but Wikibon senior analyst Stu Miniman has an idea of what’s in the pipe. He said that the company typically retools management solutions it obtains through acquisitions for its customers’ environments and adds integrations with complementary products in its lineup.

As Miniman sees it, Cisco wants to build a management portfolio that spans every major enterprise technology niche from converged infrastructure to the public cloud. He said that containers are an especially significant element of the vendor’s plans because it was late to address previous trends in the virtualization world like software-defined networking. To illustrate the point, Miniman pointed to acquisition of Nicira Inc. by VMware Inc. in 2012. The deal led Cisco to pull out of its highly lucrative VCE converged infrastructure joint venture with the hypervisor maker and EMC Corp. two years later.

“Cisco felt that they missed a big opportunity with virtualization where VMware (and EMC) became more strategic,” Miniman said. “Cisco doesn’t want to miss the boat on containers.”

But while the purchase of ContainerX is a step in the right direction, Cisco must do a lot more if it wants to capitalize on the growing enterprise adoption of Docker. Its biggest challenge will be distinguishing itself from VMware, Rancher Labs Inc. and the numerous vendors out that are working to help organizations streamline the management of their container clusters.

Moreover, the company will also need to contend with Kubernetes and the various other open-source automation offerings in the Docker ecosystem, which have the advantage of being free. The “cloud-native stack” it’s planning to build with ContainerX’s help will have to provide a lot of value-added functionality in order to stand out from the competition.

Image from ContainerX