Dell Acquires Cloud Management Player Enstratius

Dell has acquired Enstratius (previously known as Enstratus), a provider of enterprise cloud-management software and services provider that delivers single and multi-tenant cloud management capabilities. The acquisition continues the streak of tech giants buying up some of the most interesting cloud pieces in order to flesh out their own cloud portfolios and capabilities. Back in March, Oracle purchased Nimbula in a similar “giant gobbles up interesting cloud player” move.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Enstratius was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn. Dell plans to retain the staff of Enstratius and, as with previous acquisitions, will continue to invest in additional engineering and sales capability to grow this business. The question of whether these acquisitions will thrive amongst a larger organization or wither away are always present. However, Dell does have a good track record in terms of integrating acquisitions (Boomi is one popular example).

The acquisition of Enstratius enhances Dell’s ability to provide cloud management solutions to its customers, as the company fleshes out its portfolio of cloud offerings.  Enstratius helps organizations manage applications across private, public and hybrid clouds, including automated application provisioning and scaling, application configuration management, usage governance, and cloud utilization monitoring.

Enstratius is available as software-as-a-service or as on-premises software, enabling full control from within a customer's data center, or via a hosted service.   Enstratius currently supports more than 20 public and private cloud platforms, including OpenStack, VMware, Rackspace, Amazon Web Services and Windows Azure, with the added flexibility to easily add new clouds.  The bottom line: Enstratius has been going out of its way to ensure compatibility across the cloud landscape, and its acquisition positions Dell to be similarly compatible.

Big Technology Players Embracing Multi-Cloud Strategies

The big trend among customers is embracing cloud either in a hybrid setup, as part of a larger strategy, or employing multiple clouds for various reasons including cost savings, redundancy and extending overall reach. However, managing multiple clouds is tricky. This is where Enstratius comes in. The big technology players are looking to acquire cloud management offerings that are cloud agnostic.  The Enstratius acquisition enables customers to choose from a wide variety of public and private cloud providers, including Dell and non-Dell clouds.

"As enterprises increase their use of public, private and hybrid clouds, the need for controls, security, governance and automation becomes more critical," said Tom Kendra, vice president and general manager, systems management, Dell Software. "Dell, together with Enstratius, is uniquely positioned to deliver differentiated, complete cloud-management solutions to enterprise customers, large and small, empowering them with the efficiency and flexibility in the allocation and use of resources."

Dell says Cloud management is a key strategic priority for Dell, given customers' rapid adoption of cloud-based applications and the compelling array of cloud deployment models.  Enstratius brings Dell cloud infrastructure management for public, private and hybrid-cloud deployments and complements the capability Dell recently acquired from Gale Technologies, now Active System Manager (ASM), by providing enhanced multi-cloud management and application configuration capabilities.

Enstratius also builds upon Dell Software's strong portfolio of technologies such as Foglight performance monitoring, Quest ONE identity and access management, the Boomi integration platform, and data protection offerings such as AppAssure and NetVault to create a stronger systems management portfolio that enhances multi-cloud management.

"We are excited to join the Dell team and bring our expertise to Dell's rapidly growing cloud-management capabilities," said David Bagley, CEO of Enstratius.  "Together, Enstratius and Dell create new opportunities for organizations to accelerate application and IT service delivery across on-premises data centers and private clouds, combined with off-premises public cloud solutions. This capability is enhanced with powerful software for systems management, security, business intelligence and application management for customers, worldwide."