IBM acquires data management firm

IBM has acquired Initiate Systems, a privately held developer of data integrity software for the healthcare industry, insurance providers, and government agencies, says ChannelWeb.

The financial details of the acquisition weren't disclosed. Initiate is IBM's 30th acquisition in the information management and data analytics arena. Since 2005, the company has spent $10 billion on 14 other 'strategic acquisitions' to build out its business analytics software portfolio.

The Initiate acquisition is further proof of IBM's increased emphasis on 'high-value' IT like business analytics, said Arvind Krishna, GM of IBM's information management business. "IBM is undergoing a significant shift in its business model," he said.

Storage and cloud seem almost as natural a fit as storage and virtualisation, yet inroads there have not gone nearly as deep, writes ServerWatch.

A recent survey of 535 companies conducted by the storage management and backup software vendor CommVault found security and privacy to be the overarching concern of organisations moving to a cloud storage model. Other concerns, says CommVault director of cloud solutions, Jeff Echols, are the complexity inherent in moving the data and the dreaded vendor lock-in.

Still, according to the survey, 52% of respondents are considering the use of cloud storage services today or down the road for key reasons: growing data volumes, storage capacity limits, large data centre footprints, lengthy retention requirements, and costly storage infrastructures.

With virtualisation, data centre resources are shared in an adaptive, large communal pool of dynamic capacity, states eWeek.

Because capacity is shared, there is a ripple effect in the data centre cluster; when one application or virtual machine zigs, others must zag in response since capacity is finite. As a result, capacity planning and management is a higher stakes game in a virtual environment.

IT shops need tools that intimately understand this dynamic new layer and can help ensure that adequate capacity is on hand when it's needed. In basic economic terms, it's about balancing business demand with IT supply.