CA inks deal to acquire cloud computing provider 3Tera in an acquisition that could get the management software maker into more and new customer accounts for its existing monitoring tools and future cloud-related products
CA recently caught the attention of industry watchers with their eyes on the cloud as the acquisition of 3Tera, the third cloud-related purchase by from the IT management software maker, made CA’s ambitions much clearer.
CA continues cloud computing buying spree
“CA is becoming very aggressive – in a positive sense – in singling out cloud computing in its various forms (private, public, community and hybrid) as a disruptive technology, and 3Tera makes a lot of sense as an acquisition in that sense,” says Dennis Drogseth, vice president at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). “Since 3Tera follows the acquisitions of Cassatt and Oblicore – there is a clear message here – strengthened by the creation of its Cloud Products and Solutions business unit. In other words, CA has created an entire organizations directed at focusing on cloud.”
IT management and cloud computing market watcher like what CA is doing, to say the least. The company, which recently appointed William McCracken to CEO following John Swainson, announced it would acquire 3Tera last week. Following the buys of automation vendor Cassatt and service-level management (SLM) software maker Oblicore, experts say the cloud computing technology AppLogic, developed by 3Tera will help CA enable customers to move to cloud environments and put the company in a good position to later sell its management products designed to monitor and control services in the cloud.
The 3Tera buy would bring to the management software maker its AppLogic suite, which helps customer encapsulate existing applications into containers suited for private and public cloud environments, says Jay Fry, vice president of business unit strategy for CA. And the Oblicore buy “reflects a commitment to support SLM in the cloud and bring cloud into more mainstream service management disciplines,” EMA’s Drogseth says. Cassatt helped CA boost its own data center management and automation products, which could extend into cloud management offerings.
Others point out that CA not only gains 3Tera technology, but also the vendor’s savvy with managed service provider customers. CA, which sees most of its customer strength in enterprise accounts, will gain in two ways with this buy, experts say.
“It’s a great acquisition for CA and I believe it’ll be well worth the (apparently high!) price tag. 3Tera’s application fabric is mature and robust, and better still, the team knows how to sell into managed service providers, something CA needs to learn to do as the future grows cloudier,” says Rachel Chalmers, research director at The 451 Group.
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