EMC beefs up governance offerings with Archer buy

EMC has inked a deal to purchase IT governance and compliance specialist Archer Technologies.

The company said that the deal for the privately-held Archer would close within the current financial quarter. Terms were not disclosed.

Kansas-based Archer claims more than six million users for its governance and compliance tools. When the deal is finalised, EMC said that it plans to integrate Archer into its RSA security branch.

The company noted that Archer's expertise in governance, risk and compliance software is especially attractive as a component of RSA's policy enforcement and IT risk management offerings. EMC plans to use the new tools as part of a governance platform for both physical and virtualised systems.

"Traditional security management focuses primarily on addressing technology issues, but our customers are telling us that their real challenges are in the areas of policy management, audit and compliance," said RSA president Art Coviello.

"The Archer solution not only offers the visibility into risk and compliance that customers need, it brings stronger policy management capabilities to the RSA portfolio."

Coviello suggested that the new acquisition could be paired with RSA's own data loss prevention and information management tools to create a larger, better integrated security platform.

"We can help customers unify their visibility and processes across security, business continuity, configuration management and a range of broader IT compliance tasks," he said.