IBM has announced plans to acquire Turbonomic, a network and application performance management software provider, for an undisclosed amount.

With the acquisition, which is expected to finalised in the second quarter of 2021, IBM aims to help its customers lower the costs of managing multiple applications within the same hybrid cloud environment.

The announcement follows IBM’s recent acquisition of Instana, as well as the launch of IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps, which automates IT operations with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).

Turbonomic, which was founded in 2008 as VMTurbo, is to provide IBM with unique AI-powered automation tools capable of running on Red Hat OpenShift and across any hybrid cloud environment.

Commenting on the acquisition of Turbonomic, IBM general manager Dinesh Nirmal said that the company believes “that AI-powered automation has become inevitable, helping to make all information-centric jobs more productive”.

“That’s why IBM continues to invest in providing our customers with a one-stop-shop of AI-powered automation capabilities that spans business processes and IT. The addition of Turbonomic now takes our portfolio another major step forward by ensuring customers will have full visibility into what is going on throughout their hybrid cloud infrastructure, and across their entire enterprise,” he added.

The announcement comes just days after IBM unveiled a set of improvements to its storage portfolio designed to give its customers greater access to and management of their data across their complex hybrid cloud environments. The company previously added AI-powered automation and data management to its Cloud Pak for Data and Cloud Pak for Automation platforms, following its October 2020 decision to focus entirely on its AI capabilities and the hybrid cloud.

IBM Cloud and Data Platform senior VP Rob Thomas said that the tech giant “continues to reshape its future as a hybrid cloud and AI company”, adding that the acquisition of Turbonomic is “yet another example” of IBM’s “commitment to making the most impactful investments to advance this strategy and ensure customers find the most innovative ways to fuel their digital transformations”.

Commenting on the news, Turbonomic CEO Ben Nye said that “the combination of IBM and Turbonomic will continuously assure target application response times even during peak demand”.

IBM stated that the transaction with Turbonomic is “subject to customary closing conditions”.