CA Buys Storage-Management VendorCA Buys Storage-Management Vendor

Computer Associates might be improving customer service and making its products more modular, but it hasn't lost its yen for acquisitions.

CA this week acquired all the assets of little-known storage area network software vendor Netreon Inc. No purchase price was disclosed. CA says it will include Netreon's SANexec Designer in its BrighStor line of storage software products and brand it as BrighStor SAN Designer. Whatever the name, the software helps customers automate the administration of the storage area network, increasing the SAN's efficiency and helping them save money.

CA will use SAN Designer to help customers automate the planning, deployment, changes, and documentation of components on a SAN. Too often, SANs are in place before problems and inefficiencies are found.

Hype-Free Consulting founder and analyst Jon Oltsik says success from any management tools like BrighStor comes from such planning and automation. "Management-tool vendors pay too much attention to software and not enough to the people who use it to make things work," he says. "Netreon will probably get CA close to the operational side, which means about 80% of the success of BrighStor."