Between its efforts to change the way data traverses the cloud and its collaboration with DARPA to bend Moore’s law, IBM at times appears to be pushing harder to define tomorrow’s data centers than to improve the ones its customers run today. That’s why its latest acquisition sends a reassuring message.

Big Blue revealed this morning that it has picked up the security business of Lighthouse Computer Services Inc., a long-time partner focusing on the mid-market  that boasts of being among the most highly awarded members of its ecosystem.  The Rhode Island-based subsidiary, which goes by the name Lighthouse Security Group, LLC, has developed a hosted implementation of the enterprise stalwart’s Tivoli identity management software that allows users to govern data usage across both their on-premise environments and cloud deployments.

Light House Gateway supports more than 14 million workers, according to its maker, a figure that positions the offering as a formidable alternative to more established products from top IBM competitors such as CA Technologies, Inc. and Oracle Corp., which announced its own security acquisition recently.  As if that wasn’t enough to catch Big Blue’s attention, the service was made available on its SoftLayer infrastructure-as-a-service platform in February.

No financial details were disclosed for the transaction, which comes hot on the heels of IBM buying CrossIdeas s.r.l., an Italian startup that has created a similar solution that helps companies track what data and services their employees are accessing. The product, dubbed IDEAS, takes the concept a step further with built-in automation features and a set of analytical capabilities that it claims enables admins to spot even the most elusive of policy violations, such as a trader retaining the ability to enter on behalf of a client after being transferred to a different account.

IBM said that the respective solutions of Lighthouse Computer Services and CrossIdeas will be fused into its data governance stack to better address the security requirements of customers. Topping the checklist is centralization, a joint focus for the firms that is becoming increasingly important for enterprises and government agencies as managed services grow more prevalent in the workplace and stretch the security perimeter beyond the four walls of the organization.

The deals buy Big Blue both the technology and the know-how it needs to deliver that functionality. The transactions also serve to reaffirm that CEO Virginia Rometty’s  aggressive emphasis on new initiatives is not coming at the expense of the company’s bread and butter revenue sources.

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