Mercury Interactive To Buy Systinet To Bolster SOA Move

In a statement released Monday, Mercury Interactive positioned the acquisition as a way to bolster its business technology optimization (BTO) position.

Integrators use Systinet's technology to manage service oriented architectures from disparate sources. Its products provide a "system of record" and a set of governance and lifecycle capabiliteisto help integrators and users track, control and ensure integrity of the various services that comprise SOAs.

The Systinet Registry, for example, organizes, manages and publishes re-useable business services. A policy manager automates services validation so that only services that conform to standards are put into production.

Current Analysis analyst Shawn Willett said with the proliferation of Web services from different vendors, this tracking and management capability will be critical to keeping them all up and running.

"SOA governance and management will become more important as SOAs become the dominant IT paradigm because SOAs are highly distributed and a bit chaotic," Willett said. "[That means] governance will come to the forefront in importance."

The acquisition is expected to close later this quarter, pending the usual regulatory approvals.

Mercury Interactive is based in Mountain View, Calif., Systinet in Burlington, Mass.