Accenture, one of the world’s largest IT integrators, obviously believes there is significant value in providing professional services for installing and integrating Oracle’s big, powerful and expensive Exadata database rack servers into existing enterprise systems.
Dallas-based Accenture on May 19 revealed that it has agreed to acquire neighboring Enkitec, a longtime high-level Oracle partner and a leading provider of Exadata implementations and database administration and development. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The deal likely signifies one or both of these developments: Oracle is selling a lot of Exadata units and needs help with support, or the Exadata is difficult to install and run/maintain on a daily basis and needs an outside consultancy to help customers make them work.
Other companies have grown their IT businesses by providing either tools or services that make Oracle’s powerful but complicated software and hardware easier to use. Quest Software, now Dell Software, is one of the most prominent in this category.
Exadata, launched in 2008 and updated several times since, is a souped-up, NAND flash-based database server designed for both enterprise-level data warehousing and extreme-performance online transaction processing.
Exadata is optimized for specific duty in scale-out data archiving and for high-performance transactional use. It employs standard Oracle Sun hardware components engineered with Sun’s solid-state FlashFire memory cards to go with Oracle’s latest Exadata Storage Server Software Release.
Enkitec is a 10-year-old global systems integrator specializing in the delivery of Oracle database technologies and customized end-to-end services for Oracle Engineered Systems. The Irving, Texas-based company has more than 70 Oracle consultants—including 13 elite technical specialists.
Oracle Engineered Systems combine Oracle’s applications and database IT pre-integrated onto its own servers.
Accenture already has more than 52,000 Oracle-skilled consultants around the world. Accenture has worked with Oracle for more than two decades and is a Diamond-level member in Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN).
Enkitec employees will join Accenture’s global Infrastructure Services division.
Accenture has about 289,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. The company generated net revenue of $28.6 billion for fiscal year 2013.