Network installation and analysis vendor Fluke Networks has made a quiet end-of-year acquisition, enfolding network analysis tools provider ClearSight Networks into its family. Here are some quick details.

Fluke, which has a decent channel program and is known for its products for installation and certification, testing, monitoring and analysis of copper, fiber and wireless networks, has purchased ClearSight in a private acquisition, which means the terms were not disclosed. In the purchase, Fluke gains additional protocol analysis, deep packet inspection and forensic stream-to-disk technologies.

Among the products in the ClearSight family are CSA, a premium software protocol analyzer, and NTM, a real-time network traffic monitoring solution that employs deep packet inspection and stream-to-disk storage capacity for historical analysis. Fluke currently has similar technology in its Visual Performance Manager, a unified system that provides visibility into the network to help organizations deploy, manage, solve and optimize the delivery of enterprise applications.

“ClearSight’s network analysis solutions maximize network engineers’ ability to actively monitor critical links carrying high volumes of network traffic for performance bottlenecks, security anomalies and intermittent disruptions,” said Arif Kareem, President, Fluke Networks in a statement. “ClearSight’s powerful historical analysis, when coupled with deep packet inspection and monitoring, provide the comprehensive visibility needed to isolate, diagnose and resolve problems before they impact network performance.”

What this really means is Fluke channel partners have even more power at their fingertips in the network monitoring space. ClearSight had no channel program to speak of, and as such had little interaction with solution providers. That changes now that Fluke owns ClearSight’s technology, benefiting both Fluke and its solution provider base.