Network and applications management software maker SolarWinds has acquired storage resource management (SRM) vendor Tek-Tools in a bid to move into the enterprise storage management market.
SolarWinds acquired the assets of Tek-Tools, which has offices in Dallas, TX and Chennai, India, for $42 million in cash and stock.
SolarWinds will immediately begin selling Tek-Tools’ SRM software as standalone products and plans to integrate Tek-Tools’ Profiler software suite into the SolarWinds Orion product portfolio by the end of 2010.
SolarWinds claims the addition of Tek-Tools’ technology will add management of enterprise storage infrastructure to Orion’s existing network and applications management capabilities to create an “end-to-end IT management solution.”
The Orion product family includes tools for network, systems and application management, and includes products such as the Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) and Orion Application Performance Monitor (APM).
Tek-Tools’ Profiler is a Web-based, real-time and historical resource monitoring, forecasting, and reporting software suite. Profiler gives users visibility into the performance of storage and virtualized server infrastructures with real-time and historical resource monitoring, forecasting, and reporting. The software uses a policy-driven automation framework to report and forecast trends for SANs, NAS, DAS, as well as applications within physical and virtual IT infrastructures.
SolarWinds’ president, COO and CFO, Kevin Thompson, says Tek-Tools’ business model is similar to SolarWinds’ in that its software is Web-based and downloadable. The focus now is to make the Profiler software “easier to download, evaluate and install.”
Thompson says SolarWinds will retain the Tek-Tools senior management team and about 60 employees in Texas and India, most of who work in research and development.
SolarWinds also plans to maintain Tek-Tools’ existing partner relationships. Tek-Tools’ technology and strategic partners include 3PAR, AdviStor, Agami Systems, Bell Microproducts, Brocade, CA, Cambridge Computer, CDW, Dell, EMC, GlassHouse, the Harding Group, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Kisdata, LSI, the Microsoft Developer Network, MySQL AB, NetApp, Novell, PC Mall, Quantum, Red Hat, Siemens Business, the Storage Networking Industry Association, Sun Microsystems, Syncsort, Techmate, VMware and Xiotech.
