Syncsort, a provider of big data and mainframe software, has completed the acquisition of UK-based William Data Systems, a provider of advanced network monitoring and security software products for the IBM z Systems z/OS mainframe platform.
According to Syncsort, because the mainframe is a high-volume transactional supercomputer, the networking and security data collected by the William Data product suite is particularly valuable to fast-growing big data and analytical platforms.
The move continues Syncsort's acquisitions approach to bridge the gap between big iron and big data. "Acquisitions are a very important tool in our innovation toolkit, as a complement to the fantastic products we're building organically in our software labs," said Lonne Jaffe, CEO, Syncsort. "William Data Systems will bring us both extraordinary talent and highly differentiated intellectual property that will advance our ambitious technical strategy."
Industry estimates place as much as 80% of the world's corporate data residing on or originating from mainframes. Continuing to advance mainframe technology, IBM recently announced the new z13 mainframe system, featuring capabilities for enterprise mobility and the Internet of Things.
Zen, the William Data suite of management tools, provides advanced monitoring, alerting, tracing, vulnerability tracking, encryption, and authentication capabilities for the z/OS mainframe operating system. Through planned integration between the William Data technology and the recently launched Syncsort Ironstream product, Syncsort will soon be able to provide direct access to rich mainframe network monitoring and security data from within Splunk Enterprise and Splunk Cloud.
The acquisition builds on Syncsort's position in mainframe software with products such as MFX, which lowers costs while improving system efficiency; the new ZPSaver suite, which offloads CPU intensive tasks to specialty zIIP engines; and DL/2, which allows customers to migrate data from IBM IMS to DB2/z without changing existing applications.
Syncsort says the acquisition will also complement its newly released Apache Hadoop-based product DMX-h 8, which provides out-of-the-box data integration to connect the mainframe with Apache Spark, Tableau, Amazon Redshift, Qlikview, and other platforms.
For more information on the acquisition, go here.