In an effort to boost its SRM (storage resource management) capabilities, accelerate plans for grid technology and simplify open standards-based integration across its storage portfolio, Hewlett-Packard on Monday announced that it has signed a deal to acquire storage software company AppIQ for an undisclosed amount of cash.
Once the acquisition closes in approximately 45 days, AppIQ will be fully integrated into the StorageWorks division of Hewlett-Packard Co.s Technology Solutions Group.
HP officials would not elaborate on the future of AppIQs 130 employees once the purchase is finalized.
Through its purchase of Burlington, Mass.-based AppIQs SRM and SAN (storage area network) technology, HP will tighten the ability to integrate storage management with other parts of its server, IT asset management, helpdesk and application connectivity capabilities, said Frank Harbist, vice-president and general manager of ILM (information lifecycle management) and Storage Software for HP, based in Palo Alto, Calif.
“AppIQ really reinforces where HP is going in terms of management,” said Harbist. “What we see today are islands of management. You manage which environment necessary and you have to learn one tool for each.
“Where were headed is visibility and monitoring across all of those islands,” he added. “In the future, we will move to automate so many of those mundane tasks that had to be done from multiple consoles. Not only can they be (controlled) from one console, but also over time can be programmatically capable to run on their own.”
AppIQ is HPs OEM partner for HP Storage Essentials Enterprise Edition.
Due for an updated release next month, Storage Essentials is a building block to HPs Adaptive Enterprise, offering unified server and storage management through integration with HP System Insight Manager and integration with HP OpenView via smart plug-ins.
The open-standards based product features smart plug-ins and offers SRM for heterogeneous storage environments coupled with provisioning and application infrastructure monitoring capabilities.
