HP to buy blade management expert RLX

IDG News Service - Hewlett-Packard Co. today announced plans to buy RLX Technologies Inc. as a way to provide better systems management for its blade servers running Linux. The deal is part of HP's strategy to plug holes in its enterprise management product portfolio via acquisitions.
Once a seller of blade hardware, Spring, Texas-based RLX exited that business late last year to focus on software -- its blade and Linux management suite, RLX Control Tower.
Once the deal is completed, RLX will become part of HP's BladeSystem business in the company's Technology Solutions Group. HP expects to close the sale in 30 days, with complete integration of RLX by the second half of next year, said Rick Becker, vice president and general manager of HP Blade Systems.
HP didn't reveal the financial terms of the deal.
HP's blade servers already have tools for managing Linux on blades, but those tools have been built from HP's Windows and Unix-based tools, said Becker. The RLX tool now gives HP a blade server management tool built from the ground up by Linux engineers.
RLX offices are located near HP's Houston facilities.
Over time, HP plans to integrate Control Tower into its existing server, storage and enterprise management software suites, Systems Insight Manager (SIM), ProLiant Essentials and OpenView. The ultimate goal is to simplify and unify the management of HP servers regardless of whether they run Linux, Unix or Windows, the company said.
HP also plans to incorporate Control Tower into its plans to develop a service-oriented architecture based on integrating SIM and OpenView, the company said.
By late 2006, HP expects to have the Control Tower tool integrated with its Insight Manager, although the tool will continue to be offered as a separate product, said Becker. Control Tower will continue work with hardware made by other vendors and will adhere to open standards, but it will be optimized for use with HP equipment, he said.
RLX employs 36 workers and has around 200 customers worldwide. The company was a pioneer in the blade hardware market, and while it quit the hardware market last December, some customers are still using its blades. HP has agreed to support that hardware through its warranty periods.
Today's blade market is widely seen by analysts as a two-horse race between HP and IBM. However, HP has significantly lagged behind IBM when it comes to market share in the Linux-based blade space, with some experts suggesting that in the second quarter of 2005 IBM sold three times as many of the servers runningLinux as HP.
HP hopes the addition of RLX management technology to its Linux version of SIM will help attract more customers for its blades and said it has no plans for now to make Control Tower open-source. But it said it may revisit that policy in the future.
HP has been pursuing a steady strategy of acquiring companies and their technologies to fill in gaps in its enterprise management software suites, including the pending purchases of IT asset and service management software vendor Peregrine Systems Inc. and storage-area network management software firm AppIQ Inc. The AppIQ deal was announced last month.
Computerworld's Patrick Thibodeau contributed to this report.