IBM acquires Instana, builds out application monitoring tools

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IBM said it will acquire Instana to bolster its monitoring and observability tools.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

The purchase is part of IBM's strategy to automate hybrid and multicloud deployments with artificial intelligence. In a recent interview with ZDNet, Dinesh Nirmal, general manager of cloud integration at IBM, said every enterprise is trying to automate business across clouds.

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Instana manages application performance on multiple platforms including cloud, on-premises, mobile and mainframe. Instana's stack will be integrated into Watson AIOps, which launched earlier in 2020. Instana will help IBM determine a baseline of application performance. 

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The Instana acquisition is part of a broader automation push. IBM acquired WDG Automation for robotics process automation and partnered with ServiceNow to manage IT infrastructure. Big Blue also has its IBM Cloud Pak for Automation.

Instana charges $75 per host a month and bills annually. Deployments are available via SaaS or self-hosted and is based on open standards with support for multiple containers and monitoring technologies.