Google has acquired cloud monitoring company Stackdriver to improve its own computing service and compete with other well-known providers such as Amazon.
Stackdriver enables developers to keep a close watch on their software and apps that run in cloud environments, including those from Amazon's Web Services and Rackspace.
Google announced the deal with the startup through a blog post written by product manager Tim Kershaw.
"Stackdriver has built a leading service to help developers intelligently monitor the apps and services they're building and running in the cloud. This allows customers to have more visibility into errors, performance, behavior, and operations," he wrote. "The teams are going to be working to integrate Stackdriver's great functionality so that Google Cloud Platform customers can take advantage of these new advanced monitoring capabilities."
Google did not disclose the terms of the acquisition deal.
The Stackdriver team also posted an announcement on its website. "Our new colleagues on the Google Cloud Platform team share our passion for helping developers build great products. They also know a thing or two about data visualization, analytics and cloud computing. We could not be more excited to join forces and innovate together."
Kershaw said Stackdriver will be joining Google's Cloud Platform team. According to the Wall Street Journal, Stackdriver employees who are currently working in Boston will be moving to Google's offices in Cambridge, Mass. They will be assimilating Stackdriver's monitoring technology into Google's current host of Cloud Platform services.
According to sources who spoke to the WSJ, Google will be investing more in the cloud computing space in the upcoming months. This ties in with a Bloomberg report that Google's cloud computing offerings have not been on par with Amazon's in terms of web services. The company recently cut prices and is looking to bring customers in with more tools similar to those that Stackdriver provides.
