NEW YORK — (BUSINESS WIRE) — April 9, 2018 — Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has been granted a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for analytics-based multi-cloud tagging capabilities of the Accenture Cloud Platform (ACP).

Introduced in 2013, ACP is a multi-cloud management platform that enables organizations to manage their enterprise cloud resources – public and private – centrally from a control plane. ACP allows enterprises to improve operations, maintain security, control cost and ensure governance of their growing cloud estate. The newly issued patent – U.S. Patent No. 9,853,913, for a “multi-cloud network proxy for the control and normalization of tagging data” – is part of Accenture’s growing portfolio of dozens of patents and patent applications globally related to ACP and other core multi-cloud-management concepts.

What makes the underlying technology behind Accenture’s latest patent award unique is that it enables a company to tag assets across its entire cloud “estate” – regardless of which or how many cloud providers the company uses – and then deploy standard policies and controls across the assets, such as to ensure authorized user access and thresholds. Companies need this multi-cloud tagging capability to gain the visibility required to keep track of the volume and dynamic nature of cloud assets and services, which include everything from compute capacity to databases to serverless functions.

ACP’s multi-tagging capability supports key business functions related to application management, governance and security, among others, and enables companies to better manage and control their cloud costs. For example, ACP tags can group all resources that are used only for development and testing (versus production), enabling customers to understand their research and development costs and then turn these resources off outside of business hours – thus saving money.

“The patent award demonstrates Accenture’s commitment to innovation in the cloud. At Accenture, more than 85 percent of our workloads are in the cloud, so we know what it takes to effectively manage and control cloud estates,” said Michael Liebow, managing director of the Accenture Cloud Platform. “The award, with more in the queue, demonstrates our long-term focus on building innovative products, platforms and managed services for our clients’ biggest challenges in their own journey to cloud, and help them move toward a secure, as a service environment.”

Catherine Gulsvig Wood, co-inventor of the patent-awarded tagging capability, added, “If you can’t control your tags, you can’t manage your cloud. Our new tagging technology frees IT departments from concerns over how to manage their cloud assets, regardless of the resource type or platform provider. While the technology is geared to multi-cloud environments, even organizations with a single cloud environment can benefit from its capability.”

The technology underlying the new patent was developed by Gulsvig Wood and Roger Foskett, a cloud technology architect in Accenture Operations.

Accenture has been innovating in cloud technology for more than a decade. The company holds more than 200 granted patents and pending applications across its global cloud portfolio. Accenture has been recognized as a Leader in the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Infrastructure Managed Services, Worldwide.

Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Infrastructure Managed Services, Worldwide” Craig Lowery, Mark D. Ray, et al., 29 March 2018.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Accenture

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