Load DynamiX Leads Merger With Virtual Instruments for Performance Analytics

Virtual Instruments, Inc., in real-time infrastructure performance management, and Load DynamiX, Inc., in storage performance analytics, announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which the companies will merge to create the industry’s first end-to-end infrastructure DevOps platform.

To accelerate joint innovation in the multi-billion-dollar IT infrastructure market, HighBar Partners will lead a new $20 million investment round into the combined company. Additional investors in the new company include Azure Capital Partners, Kinetic Ventures and Benhamou Global Ventures LLC, the investment fund founded by Eric Benhamou, former CEO of 3Com.

Under the terms of the deal, the combined entity will retain the name Virtual Instruments and will be led by Philippe Vincent, the current president and CEO of Load DynamiX. The combination will enable Virtual Instruments to offer new and existing customers a comprehensive end-to-end infrastructure performance analytics product portfolio, capable of delivering actionable infrastructure performance insights across physical, virtual and cloud environments.

Together, the two companies will help customers proactively address the IT imperative to achieve lower cost structures and higher levels of performance within increasingly complex and disparate IT environments. Today, enterprises lack a holistic view of how application workloads interact with their underlying infrastructure. No two workloads are alike, and every data center is unique, irrespective of investments in flash, software-defined, cloud and converged technologies. Virtual Instruments offers a deep workload visibility and storage infrastructure performance analytics to support the next-generation agile business environment.

The new company will have approximately 180 employees and will be hiring additional people
immediately, primarily in engineering and sales.

“By merging the undisputed leaders in infrastructure performance management and storage performance analytics, we’ve created a combination of solutions that no one else in the industry comes close to offering,” said Vincent, CEO. “Given the complementarity of our leadership teams and products, our customers and partners view this as the logical next step in our evolution into the new Virtual Instruments.“

“The merger of these two companies is employee and customer driven,” said John Thompson, CEO, Virtual Instruments. “The synergies across combined product portfolios are extremely positive and should deliver real value to our combined customer base.”

Virtual Instruments and Load DynamiX customers have continually asked for tighter integration between the two companies’ products, and the merger responds to that demand. Virtual Instruments’ VirtualWisdom platform analyzes the performance of the production infrastructure for IT operations, while Load DynamiX delivers the storage workload acquisition, analysis and modeling capabilities IT engineering and architecture teams need. Together, the technologies offer the best infrastructure instrumentation and performance analytics in the data center.

Mambers of the new board of directors are CEO Philippe Vincent, John Kim of HighBar Partners, Roy Thiele-Sardiña of HighBar Partners, Paul Weinstein of Azure Capital Partners, and industry executive and former Load DynamiX CEO Clay Marr. John Thompson is not included in the list.

The new executive management team includes CEO Philippe Vincent, CFO Kevin McDonnell, SVP sales Warren Bell, CMO Len Rosenthal, CTO John Gentry, SVP of products Tim Van Ash, and SVP of services Bo Barker.

HQs of the new company will be in Zanker Road, San Jose, CA, the HQs of Load DynamiX.

John Kim, managing partner, HighBar Partners, said: “Visibility into the infrastructure to analyze performance is critical for enterprises as they deploy complex heterogeneous technologies in hybrid on-premise and cloud environments. The merger of Virtual Instruments and Load DynamiX solidifies our leadership position and creates an innovative and powerful platform to advance our goal of delivering end-to-end infrastructure performance management to our customers.”

Henry Baltazar, senior analyst, 451 Research, said: “The combination of Virtual Instruments’ deep application and infrastructure management tools combined with Load DynamiX’s performance analytics and modeling tools can help enterprises gain the insight required to intelligently manage and evolve their infrastructures. This combination will provide customers with a comprehensive view of their infrastructure to help find trouble spots before they occur and to rightsize technology acquisitions.”

Arun Taneja, founder, president and consulting analyst, Taneja Group, said: “I have known and worked with both Virtual Instruments and Load DynamiX since their inceptions in 2008. I have spoken to many of their customers over the years and the value of combining the two companies is both compelling and obvious. The infrastructure visibility and performance analytics that the new Virtual Instruments provide will help enterprises dramatically reduce costs, assure performance and de-risk their transformations.“

Read also:
Start-Up Profile: Load DynamiX
In storage infrastructure performance validation
by Jean-Jacques Maleval | 2015.08.07 | News