IBM Acquires Storage Analysis Firm NovusCG
By Richard Koman
October 26, 2007 10:15AM
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While IBM's deal to acquire NovusCG is not a large one, it should fundamentally help IBM build upon its storage and data capabilities by moving up the value chain from baseline I.T. services to more sophisticated support of evolving storage usage and buying patterns, said David Hill, principal analyst for the Mesabi Group.
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IBM announced Wednesday that it has acquired NovusCG, a privately held company that was founded in 2000 and has about 100 employees. Novus specializes in business intelligence and storage analytics.
"Clients of all sizes are challenged to drive more effective utilization of their infrastructure Relevant Products/Services to conserve energy and save money while serving their business goals," said Val Rahmani, a general manager for IBM's infrastructure management services, in a statement. He said the acquisition fills a hole for IBM customers -- "the information that will allow them to align their I.T. and business strategies."
Business Intelligence for Storage
Novus' offerings include Management Complexity Factor (MCF), a patented framework and methodology that weighs eight metrics in evaluating an I.T. environment. MCF allows I.T. managers to understand the operational costs of such infrastructure components as storage, backup, and disaster recovery.
The company's Enterprise Standardization Program is a collection of tools and best practices for streamlining operations in heterogeneous environments. The best practices are delivered through a Wiki portal with defined workflows for storage and backup operations.
Storage Enterprise Resource Planner (SERP) provides "an unprecedented view" of storage use at the line-of-business level, IBM said, allowing managers to spot unnecessary duplicate storage while enabling chargeback and capacity planning. SERP will be integrated with IBM's Total Productivity Center (TPC) and the rest of IBM's system storage portfolio.
"NovusCG can help provide customers detailed, actionable storage strategies with step-by-step business justification and demonstrable ROI as well as metrics to track and measure progress. Better storage analytics is a good step forward toward better storage performance," David Hill, principal analyst for the Mesabi Group, said in a research note.
Better Storage Analytics
In a telephone interview, Hill said that the technology allows customers to "better plan their storage capacity" and can help I.T. organizations answer questions such as "Are you running out of capacity?" and "What applications use what storage?" The acquisition gives IBM "an advanced piece of analysis it hasn't had before," he added. "It gives them a fuller and richer consulting Relevant Products/Services experience."
There's also a challenge for IBM, Hill said in his research note, "since NovusCG has business partner relationships with most -- if not all -- of the large storage vendors." IBM storage analysts will now have to deal with environments that might not include any IBM components.
"As a result, IBM must maintain vendor neutrality as part of its services engagements even though it is integrating NovusCG's products not only with TPC but with other IBM storage products" including Tivoli Storage Manager, he said.
While the deal is not a large one, it should fundamentally help IBM build upon its storage and data capabilities by moving up the value chain from baseline I.T. services to more sophisticated support of evolving storage usage and buying patterns, Hill concluded.