IBM buys data-center mapping firm

IBM has acquired privately held Collation, a 4-year-old company that makes specialized software for pinpointing problems in corporate data centers. Financial terms were not disclosed.

IBM said that the Collation software will be integrated into IBM's Tivoli management software line. Collation is one of a handful of companies that have built tools to inventory and track the dependencies between data center gear, such as servers, databases and routers. By creating a visual map of data centers, Collation's software can speed up the process of spotting performance problems, according to IBM.