Oracle accelerated its strategy to better support, and ultimately poach, SAP customers yesterday by inking a new technology alliance designed to provide joint Oracle and SAP customers with new tools for monitoring their SAP applications.

The vendor signed a partnership with systems and network management software specialist Nimsoft that will see it integrate its NimBUS SAP R/3 monitoring and management tools with Oracle's Enterprise Manager 10g suite.

Mark Rivington, vice president of technology at Nimsoft, said that the integration process promises to be relatively "straightforward" and that the tools should be available as an additional module for Oracle customers from the second quarter of the year.

Rivington added that the NimBUS suite provides SAP users with detailed technical performance metrics, resource information and transactional response times, which help them ensure service levels are being met. "SAP [applications are] good at letting you know what's going on inside, but sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees," he said. "Our suite simplifies the monitoring process and makes it easier to spot performance issues."

Nimsoft said the add-on for the Oracle Enterprise Manager suite would be available from $20,000 and would be aimed at the large number of Oracle database customers running SAP applications. "These companies often find it difficult to bring SAP monitoring into the Oracle database environment," said Rivington. " This integration should solve that problem."

The move is the latest step in Oracle's so-called surround SAP strategy, which has seen the vendor try to enhance the functionality it can offer SAP customers. Recently, the company announced it was to acquire business intelligence (BI) software vendor Hyperion, prompting claims that the deal would allow Oracle to offer enhanced reporting capabilities to SAP users.