CA beefs up its storage management portfolio with the one important component it lacked—a multitiered disaster recovery software package.CA extended its already substantial storage management portfolio July 11 with the acquisition of privately held XOsoft, a provider of disaster recovery software.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The acquisition is CAs third in the last three months, following similar buyouts of automated job scheduling provider Cybermation and MDY Group International, a provider of records management software and services.
The acquisition of XOsoft enables CA, based in Islandia, N.Y., to offer something that it has lacked—a multilevel recovery management software package.
XOsoft, headquartered in Waltham, Mass., makes software that enables uninterrupted access to all types of file and application servers—including Windows Servers, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, Microsoft IIS and Oracle—and allow instantaneous recovery from any type of data loss disaster.
CA plans to integrate XOsofts products with BrightStor ARCserve Backup to deliver a complete solution for protecting and recovering critical applications, a CA spokesperson said.
Using XOsofts patented technology, CA also will develop a next-generation information protection platform to unify and simplify recovery operations, Anders Lofgren, CA senior vice president of BrightStor storage management and product marketing, told eWEEK.
"As we look toward the future, we see a gradual integration of XOsofts products into the CA portfolio," Lofgren said.
"Its not something that going to happen overnight ... but we see all four of the product genres—data replication, CDP [continuous data protection], automatic failover, and backup/recovery—as becoming key components in a new single platform were going to simply call Recovery Manager."
The first part of this integration should take place by September, XOsoft CEO Leonid Shtilman told eWEEK. Both product lines should be full integrated by the end of calendar 2007, Shtilman added.
Was recovery management software the biggest hole in the CA portfolio?
"Certainly [it was] the most significant gap in the BrightStor product set," said Michael Karp, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates in Westboro, Mass.
"I think this, with their e-mail archiving solution, makes them a much better company."
CAs acquisition policy has been very interesting, and is the exact opposite of what Symantec has done, Karp said.
"Symantec bought Veritas with its muliplicity of often unconnected products a year ago, and the industry is still waiting for the synergies to appear," Karp said.
"CA BrightStor has focused on buying a few jewels, and I fully expect them to get more immediate and substantially better results."
Jon Collins, principal analyst at Macehiter Ward-Dutton in Trumpington, Cambridge, UK, told eWEEK that "whats interesting about this announcement and its context is the fact that it is customer-driven, rather than market-driven.
"Rather than buying a company because the competition is offering something CA isnt, the companys storage portfolio has been augmented based on the growing requirements from CAs customers," Collins said.
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"This suggests a number of things, not least that CA is listening, which is very welcome."
CA as a company has stepped up to the plate and created a comprehensive portfolio for storage management, Collins added.
"In the past, CAs problem has been with how it sold software—as product with the emphasis on licensing, rather than customer satisfaction," he said. "It remains to be seen how well CA turns around its sales organization, but the company is certainly starting from the right place."
CA said it intends to market and support XOsofts complete family of products through its direct sales force and authorized XOsoft and CA partners.
The products, according to CA, encompass:
Data protection via real-time WAN replication of file servers and databases for Windows Servers, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, Microsoft IIS and Oracle
Continuous data protection that provides instant data recovery in the event of isolated data corruption
Application availability via fully automated failover and failback for file servers, Exchange, SQL, IIS and Oracle
Disaster recovery site compliance through fully automated, scheduled tests of an organizations disaster recovery system without disrupting the production environment or existing data protection
Data distribution and consolidation for centralized remote branch office backup, content delivery and Web publishing
XOsoft, founded in 1999, has about 1,600 customers in 42 countries. CA was founded in 1976.
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