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Plus, Accenture reveals the breath of its vertical divisions

Virtualisation wunderkind VMware brought the reality of self-healing IT a significant step closer in May 2008 with its acquisition of application performance management vendor B-hive.

B-hive’s Conductor tool monitors application performance and produces alerts when a bug or performance deterioration threatens service level agreements (SLAs) – even within virtual environments, where the relationship between software and hardware can be convoluted.

Combined with VMware’s own virtual machine management tools, Conductor theoretically enables a system that allocates virtual computing resources whenever SLAs are in danger of being broken – in effect creating a system that heals itself before it is broken. The price VMware paid for such powerful technology was not disclosed.

“In conjunction with VMware’s automated IT service delivery and business continuity capabilities, B-hive’s service level management capabilities further deliver on the vision of an automated, always-on, virtual data centre,” explains VMware CTO Stephen Herrod.

Virtualisation has spread like wildfire in enterprise IT infrastructure, but businesses are still cautious of mounting core business applications on a relatively new and complex platform such as VMware’s ESX. The company hopes B-hive’s SLA-focused systems management tools will open up opportunities for mission-critical application infrastructure contracts.

B-hive’s headquarters in Israel will now form the hub of VMware R&D in the region.

Vertically global

Meanwhile, recent acquisitions by global IT services group and management consultancy Accenture revealed the vast diversity of its many vertical industry interests.

A recent buy-out was ATAN, a Brazilian company that builds custom hardware and software for the mining and metallurgy industries. The deal endorses Brazil – where Accenture already employs more than 6,000 people in two global delivery centres – as a source of innovation as well as offshore software development and call centre services. Another deal saw Accenture buy Origin Digital, a company that supplies workflow tools to broadcasters’ video production departments.

Again, the values of these deals were not revealed.