The shopping spree at IBM (IBM -8.25%) continues. In its second acquisition of the week, the company announced an agreement to buy Instana. This closely follows IBM's announcement on Monday that it would buy finance and analytics company TruQua Enterprises.

Instana offers performance management tailored for overseeing cloud-native and microservice applications. Using its technology, companies can manage cloud-native applications regardless of location. This includes mobile devices and clouds, both public and private. Depending on client needs, Instana can offer these services either on-premise or as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution.

Integrating these capabilities with IBM's technology will provide insights to Watson AIOps. With this technology, it can compare the insights to normal and baseline operations, making it easier to resolve issues quickly. This should not only advance IBM's hybrid cloud but also bolster its AI-powered automation capabilities.

A cloud image on a screen interacting with data.

Image source: Getty Images

"IBM's acquisition of Instana is yet another important step that we are taking to provide companies with the most complete portfolio of AI-automated solutions to tackle this enormous challenge and help prevent unforeseen IT incidents," said Rob Thomas, IBM's senior vice president for cloud and data platform.

Mirko Novakovic, CEO of Instana, echoed the need for a new generation of performance-monitoring and observation capabilities.

"Instana's observability capabilities combined with IBM's AI-powered automation capabilities across hybrid cloud environments will give clients a full view of their application performance to best optimize operations," Novakovic said.

Neither company disclosed the financial terms of the conditional agreement. Both expect the purchase to close several months from now.