Cassatt Corporation

Cassatt Corporation was a Menlo Park, California-based enterprise software company that provided automated IT operations and management solutions for on-demand computing environments. The firm developed data center automation software designed to reduce enterprise computing costs and operational complexity by improving asset utilization without requiring modifications to existing infrastructure or applications. Operating as a private venture-backed business, the organization secured capital from prominent institutional investors including Warburg Pincus and NEA to scale its agile business architecture solutions across the technology sector. In June 2009, enterprise software provider CA, Inc. acquired the company's core data center automation technology, its intellectual property portfolio, and key engineering personnel to integrate into its own cloud computing offerings. Cassatt Corporation was originally founded in 2003 by former BEA Systems co-founder William T. Coleman III, alongside technical co-founders Brian Berliner and Dave McAllister.

# Cassatt Corporation: High-Level Overview

Cassatt Corporation was an enterprise software company specializing in IT operations automation and data center management[1][2]. The company built solutions that automated the provisioning, allocation, and management of computing resources across physical and virtual server environments, enabling organizations to operate data centers with greater efficiency and lower operational costs[2][4].

Cassatt served large enterprises and government organizations facing the challenge of managing sprawling data center infrastructure. The core problem it solved was the escalating cost of IT operations management—by the early 2000s, organizations were spending over 70 percent of their IT budgets on management and administration rather than innovation[2]. Cassatt's Collage platform provided an automated, policy-driven approach to resource allocation that required no changes to existing applications or infrastructure, making adoption frictionless for enterprises[2][4].

Origin Story

Cassatt was founded in 2003 by Bill Coleman, the original CEO of BEA Systems, a major enterprise software company[2]. Coleman founded Cassatt with a specific vision: to solve the problem of managing scale in commodity computing environments. As organizations transitioned to cheaper, commodity hardware and software, the operational complexity and cost of managing hundreds or thousands of servers became prohibitive[2].

The company gained early validation through a strategic partnership with In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture investment arm, which selected Cassatt's Collage technology in 2005 to address cost and complexity issues in government IT operations[2]. This endorsement from a high-profile government investor signaled the company's technical credibility and market relevance. Cassatt was backed by prominent venture capital firms including Warburg Pincus and NEA, raising a total of $15 million[1][2].

Core Differentiators

• Automated resource orchestration: Cassatt's Collage platform automatically allocated and controlled application server instances, virtual machines, and physical machines, eliminating manual operations[4]

• Infrastructure-agnostic design: The solution worked without requiring changes to existing applications or IT infrastructure, reducing implementation friction[2]

• Network virtualization integration: Cassatt extended its capabilities to manage network resources alongside compute, enabling administrators to dynamically assign VLANs, IP addresses, and network configurations alongside server provisioning[4]

• Vendor neutrality: The company committed to supporting all major virtual machine vendors to avoid vendor lock-in[4]

• Utility-style data center model: Cassatt pioneered the concept of operating data centers like compute utilities, with dynamic resource allocation based on demand rather than static provisioning[2]

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Cassatt emerged at a critical inflection point in enterprise computing. The early 2000s saw the rise of virtualization and commodity hardware, which promised cost savings but created operational nightmares—managing thousands of virtual and physical resources manually was unsustainable. Cassatt rode the wave of cloud computing adoption and infrastructure automation, positioning itself as a bridge between traditional data center management and the emerging utility computing model[2][4].

The company influenced the broader ecosystem by demonstrating that policy-driven, automated infrastructure management could dramatically reduce operational costs and complexity. This vision later became foundational to cloud platforms and modern DevOps practices.

Quick Take & Future Outlook

Cassatt's journey reflects the evolution of enterprise IT infrastructure. The company was acquired by CA Technologies (now Broadcom), a major enterprise software vendor, which integrated Cassatt's data center automation technology and engineering team into its broader business-driven automation platform[3]. This acquisition represented validation of Cassatt's core thesis: that intelligent, automated resource management would become essential to enterprise IT operations.

While Cassatt no longer exists as an independent entity, its legacy lives on in the infrastructure automation and cloud management solutions that dominate enterprise IT today. The problems it solved—managing scale, reducing operational costs, and enabling dynamic resource allocation—remain central to how organizations operate data centers and cloud environments in 2025.