Citrix Systems hit the acquisition trail again, this time picking up privately held Reflectent Software for an undisclosed sum, the company announced May 7.
Reflectent, with just under 50 customers and 31 employees, provides deskside application performance management software that provides IT administrators and LOB (Line of Business) managers with metrics that measure the actual performance users experience with the applications theyre using.
“Were in the business of delivering applications and accelerating them across the network. If you are going to be a leader in the application performance space then you also better be a leader in solutions that can provide business-level visibility into how those applications are performing,” said Wes Wasson, vice president of marketing for Citrix in San Jose, Calif.
With Reflectents EdgeSight for Desktops, “you get a visual snapshot on how users experiencing applications close to the data center and out over the wide area network,” he added.
Reflectent, based in Westford, Mass., includes among its customer base Georgia-Pacific, Hitachi Data Systems, Morgan Stanley, Novartis, Verizon Wireless and others.
Wasson said that LOB managers are increasingly looking for those user metrics and for how well applications are meeting Service Level Agreements.
EdgeSight for Desktops uses a client-side agent designed to diagnose performance or availability problems when they occur and identify those problems to operators before users call the help desk.
Reflectent also markets another agent for the Citrix Presentation Server to monitor session-level activity in the back end server.
A central EdgeSight Server performs data aggregation, analysis and reporting and provides a Web-based console.
Citrix envisions creating a version of the EdgeSight agent for its Citrix NetScaler application acceleration appliance to be able to monitor the performance of the appliances and demonstrate their effectiveness, according to Wasson.
Citrix, which intends to maintain the Reflectent site in Westford, will create a new Network Systems Management Group based there.
It will be led by Reflectent CEO Lou Shipley, who will report to Citrix CEO Mark Templeton.
The acquisitive Citrix in the last two years picked up four companies, including NetScaler in August 2005, application security provider Teros in November 2005, SSL VPN provider Net6 in December 2004 and Web-based access services company Expertcity in March 2004.