BlueStripe will bolster Microsoft’ hybrid cloud performance monitoring capabilities

Microsoft has acquired BlueStripe, a vendor of infrastructure monitoring solutions for applications distributed across multiple datacentres and cloud platforms.

BlueStripe and Microsoft have worked together closely over the years and the company’s solutions are often used to extend Microsoft System Centre for application infrastructure performance monitoring on a combination of Microsoft and non-Microsoft stacks.

Microsoft said the acquisition would give a strong boost to its hybrid cloud strategy.

“More and more, businesses are turning to applications to drive innovation and gain competitive advantage. To support this explosion of applications, agile cloud development environments and more componentized architectures and micro-services are growing exponentially. Applications and data are being spread across on-premises datacentres and public, private and hosted clouds as a result. While IT teams may not operate all of the infrastructure where the applications run, they still require visibility and the ability to manage these applications in order to support and protect the business,” explained Mike Neil, general manager of enterprise cloud at Microsoft.

“BlueStripe’s enterprise-class solution enables IT professionals to move from monitoring IT at the infrastructure level to gaining visibility into applications at the transaction level. The technology discovers and maps applications and dependencies, pinpoints problems for faster resolution, and helps maintain SLAs across complex underlying infrastructure. By mapping the structure of distributed applications, BlueStripe also helps in the process of updating applications to more modern platforms and migrating to the cloud.”

Microsoft said it will integrate BlueStripe’s solution into its infrastructure and ops management offerings like System Center and Operations Management Suite (OMS), but as part of the acquisition BlueStripe will cease selling its solution in the near term.

The challenge with application monitoring is it has always implied a tradeoff between flexibility and granularity. That said, BlueStripe’s FactFinder offering could give Microsoft – a strong proponent of hybrid cloud – a big boost with enterprises looking to extend their Microsoft stacks for application deployments or vice versa.