Information Builders, a provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, and Serena Software announced an expanded partnership to provide enhanced BI solutions to the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and IT Service Management (ITSM) industry.

Using the Information Builders WebFOCUS BI platform, Serena is enhancing its Serena Dashboard to provide higher-level intelligence across both its own solutions and third-party IT tools.

Information Builders and Serena first partnered in 2011 to address the challenges IT leaders faced in obtaining an enterprise view into development status and lifecycle process metrics. With the implementation of the Serena Dashboard, organizations have been able to obtain near real-time insight into their end-to-end application delivery procedures and automate important processes for speed, auditability, and efficiency.

Through the extension of its partnership with Information Builders, Serena is now giving its customers the ability to acquire these rich insights in a cohesive format for the entire application and IT service delivery lifecycle, regardless of whether they are delivered via multiple platforms. This is a key competitive advantage as it means organizations are not locked into a vendor-based platform and are assured of the same level of data analysis, even as tools, processes, and IT metrics change.

“Today’s IT leaders are often grappling with distributed teams, numerous partners, and the challenges of integrating data from disparate technology systems,” said Gerald Cohen, President and CEO of Information Builders. “As a result, it’s easy to understand that obtaining an accurate depiction of the status of an application or IT service frequently proves difficult. Through Information Builders’ partnership with Serena, we’re streamlining this process and allowing organizations to develop a holistic view of their information, independent of the amount of tools or processes involved.”

Key features of the Serena Dashboard include:

* Insight into both ALM and ITSM data and process metrics

* Ability to leverage built-in or configurable metrics across Serena’s platform and third-party IT solutions, helping customers accelerate time to value

* Dashboards that easily adapt to changes across third-party tools, IT metrics, and business processes