IBM buys Green Hat for cloud-based agile testing

IBM is acquiring Green Hat, the cloud-based software testing company. Green Hat will become part of IBM’s Rational developer tools product suite and will be offered through IBM Global Business Services' Application Management Services (AMS).

Green Hat is an automated testing tools company, which has been designed to test complex systems relying on cloud, web services, messaging, SOA (service oriented architecture), ESB (enterprise service bus), BPM (business process management), CEP (complex event processing), SAP and other distributed technologies. Green Hat’s customers include BP, Credit Suisse, British Airways and Scottish Power.

IBM said the Green Hat acquisition will help its customers maximise continuous integration of an application, including creating virtual protocols, message formats, services, customisation and engagement with third-party software.

Commenting on the acquisition, Michael Azoff, principal analyst at Ovum, said: “IBM’s announcement to acquire Green Hat will complement its existing application lifecycle management tools portfolio in providing a capability to rapidly set up test labs for complex heterogeneous systems spanning mainframe to distributed environments, including cloud and mobile.”

According to Azoff, Green Hat offers technology for systems testing by allowing individual virtualised components to be switched in turn to their live counterparts. The tool also supports agile development, according to Azoff. 

“The drive towards Agile development with higher frequency of testing and also testing earlier in the lifecycle is producing huge pressures on quality assurance. Green Hat reduces the time to set up, run, and return back to neutral test labs, and removes impediments to Agile processes in mission-critical, large-scale projects,” he said.