Keynote LLC and Dynatrace LLC have combined operations as Dynatrace moves to beef up its application performance monitoring (APM) portfolio. The merger, effective last week, marries Keynote’s testing and monitoring software with Dynatrace APM tools that let companies assess how efficiently their apps are being delivered to mobile and desktop users. Both firms are owned by San Francisco-based private equity firm Thoma Bravo, which is making a big bet in the evolving APM market. Howard Wilson, who served as Keynote’s chief commercial officer and executive vice president, will oversee the business unit that will integrate the offerings of both companies. A key goal of the merged firms, he said, is making APM a business catalyst and not merely an IT function. “If you look at companies today, they don’t just want tools to monitor and manage the online experience, they also want to understand the impact of performance on their business outcomes.”

Howard said Dynatrace will begin releasing integrated products featuring Keynote technology later this summer.

Extreme adds policy support to Summit switches 

Extreme Networks added support for role-based policy management across several of its enterprise switches, including the recently released Summit X450-G2 switch. The addition of policy and security management tools into the ExtremeXOS operating system means customers can define and manage policy throughout mixed Extreme wired and wireless environments.

Access and security policies can be based on the context of the user, device and whether the user is on a wireless or wired network. “Customers will benefit from the continued enhancements and combined hardware and software solution offerings being delivered,” said Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Dan Conde in a statement.

The X450-G2, a high-density enterprise or data center switch, can also be used in software-defined networking environments through its integration with the OpenDaylight-based OneController.

IBM developing Spark as open source data analytics engine

IBM said it will continue to develop Apache Spark as a leading open source big data analytics engine. IBM will embed Spark into its analytics and commerce platforms as well as offer Spark as a service on its Bluemix app development environment. The plan will assign as many as 3,500 IBM researchers on Spark-related projects at 12 different locations around the world. IBM is also donating its IBM SystemML machine learning technology to the Spark open source ecosystem and will teach more than 1 million data scientists and data engineers how to use Spark.

“We believe strongly in the power of open source as the basis to build value for clients, and are fully committed to Spark as a foundational technology platform for accelerating innovation and driving analytics across every business in a fundamental way,” said Beth Smith, IBM’s general manager, analytics platform, in a statement.

SolarWinds upgrades network config to automate processes

In a bid to boost its security capabilities, SolarWinds updated its Network Configuration Manager (NCM) to automatically scan for vulnerabilities on Cisco’s adaptive security appliance (ASA) and associated internetwork operating system software. This latest version of NCM uses the National Vulnerability Database to find exposures. The software automatically provides remediation options in the event of a breach and analyzes router and switch configurations for compliance with a variety of government and industry initiatives, including National Institute of Standards and Technology and Defense Information Systems Agency standards.

“Security tools focused on the actual network devices are few and far between and often IT pros find themselves manually updating and patching device software,” said SolarWinds group vice president Nikki Jennings in a statement. “SolarWinds NCM now automatically identifies vulnerabilities and assists in the remediation of issues.”