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CA acquires Oblicore
By siliconindia
Islandia: CA acquired privately-held Oblicore, a provider of Service Level Management (SLM) software for enterprises and service providers. Oblicore supports and strengthens CA's ability to set, measure and optimize service levels to meet business expectations across enterprise and cloud environments. Oblicore's solutions also extend CA's capabilities in cloud vendor management and assurance of cloud service quality. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Oblicore's customers include AT&T, ABN Amro, British Telecom, Cable and Wireless, France Telecom, ING, Lufthansa Systems, Siemens Medical Solutions and T-Systems. "Oblicore's business-centric approach gives enterprises and service providers better understanding and control over the quality and value of their IT service portfolio. With Oblicore and the recent acquisitions of NetQoS and Cassatt, CA is leaping ahead in our ability to help customers optimize IT for better business results and capitalize on the emerging cloud computing opportunity," said Ajei Gopal, Executive Vice President of CA's Products and Technology Group.
As a long-time CA partner, Oblicore has field-proven integrations with CA solutions including CA Spectrum Infrastructure Manager, CA Service Desk Manager, CA Wily Introscope, CA eHealth and CA Clarity PPM. Oblicore is designed for open connectivity to virtually any data source, with integrations to business systems and application and infrastructure monitoring tools from Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, IBM, HP, BMC and other providers. "Service Level Management is one of the fastest growing segments in the industry. Delivering Oblicore's solutions through CA's thousands of expert sales, services and support professionals will allow us to bring the benefits of SLM to both CA's vast network of existing customers and a growing global market of new ones," said Eric Converse, CEO, Oblicore.
Oblicore's top-down methodology for SLM begins with contracts that use business language and metrics. These contracts easily integrate with technical data sources for continuous service performance measurement against contract terms and conditions. The resulting transparency and control allow customers to better manage expectations between IT and the business, as well as contracts with external service providers. The use of service contracts to manage service delivery becomes even more important as enterprises leverage cloud services. Lack of direct management control makes these contracts the primary assurance mechanism. Oblicore will play a significant role in helping enterprises assure the quality of cloud services.
"EMA believes cloud computing trends will further increase the demand for service-based management including service level and service value management. Customers are demanding solutions like Oblicore that can offer business-oriented service management including details related to the service contract, collaboration during the negotiation process, and analytics to represent service delivery results in a dashboard format," said Lisa Erickson-Harris, EMA research director.
CIOs can also quantify the overall value of their service portfolio by combining Oblicore's measure of service quality with metrics on service cost, consumption and business objective alignment from CA Service Catalog, CA Service Accounting and CA Clarity PPM. Oblicore solutions will be available directly from CA and through approved channel partners.
