Open Systems today said it acquired Swiss AIOps provider Sqooba making it the latest secure access service edge (SASE) vendor to add artificial intelligence (AI)-powered data analysis to its portfolio.

Sqooba's technology — which is already being used to collect data from IoT devices and optimize logistics — will allow enterprises to leverage real-time visibility of their networks and application performance, said Open Systems CEO Jeff Brown in a statement. According to Brown, these capabilities are essential to Open Systems' transition to a "full SASE architecture."

SASE, a new category penned by Gartner, promises to consolidate elements of SD-WAN and network security into a single cloud-managed package.

“Sqooba’s extensive analytics capability is a natural addition to the broad network and security components of our SASE platform and will help us deliver business-critical insights to our customers," Brown said.

Sqooba CEO Daniel Nehaus said his company's analytics capabilities, when combined with Open System's SASE platform, will “give customers a unified view into their network and applications performance and security posture to empower their organizations.”

Neuhaus will retain his role and head up Sqooba as a subsidiary of Open Systems. Likewise, Sqooba will retain its offices in Bern, Switzerland along with its 30-plus data sciences and software engineers.

Rise of the Machines

Open Systems isn't the only vendor that has snapped up an AIOps platform in the past few months. The acquisition comes less than a week after VMware — one of the few early entrants in the emerging SASE category — announced it bought AIOps vendor Nyansa for an undisclosed sum.

And AIOps isn't just seeing adoption by SASE vendors. Managed services provider Masergy announced its own AIOps platform in September 2019.

While vendors and service providers alike are turning to AIOps to improve network visibility and help IT teams to identify and resolve network disruptions faster and more accurately, it also may be key to managing large scale IoT and 5G deployments.