Ever on the prowl, Sun Microsystems has picked up a small patch management company called Aduva.
Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Aduva Inc. recently announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which Sun will acquire Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Aduva Inc., for an undisclosed amount.
Aduva Inc. specializes in keeping Linux and Solaris servers current. In particular, the Aduva OnStage product handles the installation and testing of patches across large numbers of servers…
Aduva technology allows enterprises to automate the processes associated with patch and dependency management — providing a solution that scales from individual servers, up to large scale data centers with tens of thousands of machines in complex networks.
By acquiring Aduva, Sun will be addressing the number one pain point we hear from IT administrators — patch management — while addressing the principle cause of service downtime and system vulnerability: out of date systems and patches, said Don Grantham, Executive Vice President of Sun Services. "By integrating this technology into our offerings and services, Sun can enable customers to update thousands of systems at the touch of a button."
Aduva currently runs an active dependency service for Solaris and Linux servers, easing the burden on systems administrators deploying a continuous stream of patches, updates, and changes required throughout the data center lifecycle. Aduva’s multi-platform services will be available for operation by individual customers behind their own firewalls, or as an automated service from Sun’s Grid.
Grantham continued, "At Sun, we know how hard customers are working to reduce risk, increase compliance, and automate more manual jobs in the data center, as they rely on the network for a growing array of computing services. As the vendor most committed to delivering computing as a network service, Sun can deliver on even more compelling offerings with the addition of the Aduva technology."
Aduva counts IBM as its closest hardware partner, according to information on the company’s web site. The firm has worked on improving the management of Linux running on x86 systems and IBM’s mainframes. In fact, Aduva claims IBM and Intel as investors.
More recently, Aduva added support for Sun’s Solaris operating system as well. The Aduva testing lab is the company’s "magic."
The Lab builds enhanced entity-to-entity rules at the component level for Linux and Solaris environments identifying working sets of components and packages without breaking Distro certification, Aduva said.
The Lab harvests and mines all changes to the Linux distributions we track (both Red Hat and SUSE for Intel, AMD, Power, and Mainframe architectures) and continuously monitors for Linux component changes. As each component evolves in its lifecycle, the Aduva Lab enhances and tests its rules for comprehensive accuracy, and certifies the rules and components for deployment.
Sun seems to be on an endless quest to purchase small software companies in the hopes of boosting server and storage management skills.
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed during the fourth quarter of Sun’s 2006 fiscal year which begins on March 27, 2006. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed as the transaction is immaterial to Sun’s earnings per share.