CSC Hops on Cloud Management with ServiceMesh Buy

IT services colossus CSC (CSC) jumped on the cloud management bandwagon Oct. 30 when it snapped up ServiceMesh, whose expertise resides in helping its customers to orchestrate bridging their applications across private, public and hybrid cloud environments.

Neither party disclosed terms of the transaction, which is expected to close in CSC’s fiscal Q3 2014. ServiceMesh will operate as a CSC company, housed under its cloud unit run by its soon-to-be former chief executive Eric Pulier. The buyout will enable ServiceMesh to tap into CSC global sales, marketing and delivery solution resources and the company’s customers will gain scale through access to CSC’s network of industry consultants, application developers, software engineers, security experts and infrastructure specialists.

"Enterprise consumption habits have changed, as customers today want to move to a new IT model in which they can operate at a lower cost structure and get to market more quickly with their products and services," said Pulier.

With the deal CSC gains the ServiceMesh Agility cloud management platform, with which organizations can automate the deployment and management of enterprise applications and platforms across multiple cloud environments. The Agility platform provides a single control point for governance, compliance and security across cloud applications and environments.

Evidently, CSC is betting on large enterprises valuing the ability to use cloud services from a variety of providers and that managing those services will increase in importance as the cloud matures. Enterprises not wanting to rely on a one-vendor-fits-all practice but instead adopt a more integrated, converged approach will turn to CSC’s Service Mesh Agility cloud, the company hopes.

Here it is in one mouthful: "As an agent for cloud management, ServiceMesh is right at the point of consumerization for next-generation enterprise applications," said Dan Hushon, CSC chief technology officer. "With ServiceMesh, we will empower an ecosystem of enterprise software providers by lowering the friction for companies to execute a multi-vendor hybrid cloud strategy while maintaining central governance, policy and administration."

CSC said the ServiceMesh acquisition fits neatly with its strategic blueprint to better align itself with the expected high-growth areas of IT, including the cloud, Big Data, cybersecurity and next-generation applications. In particular, the company is banking on the security requirements of individual workloads and applications as a major factor in how enterprises select cloud options, addressable with its CloudCompute, BizCloud and BizCloud VPE portfolios.