Commentary
Startup Develops Single, Simple Interface To Cloud Services
Kaavo, a startup founded by a former IT professional, has developed a browser interface for managing resources from multiple cloud computing providers. Not yet a year old, Kaavo is moving quickly to address what's likely to be a growing need as more companies plug into not just one, but a variety of cloud services.Kaavo, a startup founded by a former IT professional, has developed a browser interface for managing resources from multiple cloud computing providers. Not yet a year old, Kaavo is moving quickly to address what's likely to be a growing need as more companies plug into not just one, but a variety of cloud services.Founded in November, Kaavo developed its J2EE-based cloud management tool initially for Amazon's EC2 service; it's written to the EC2 APIs. Kaavo's dashboard can be used by developers and IT administrators -- the people most likely to turn the knobs on servers in the cloud -- to launch EC2 server instances, grant or revoke permissions to other users, transfer files, and other common administrative tasks.
Kaavo is working on similar tie-ins to the cloud computing services of FlexiScale and GoGrid, and founder/CEO Jamal Mazhar expects to have that work competed later this quarter or early next. Once done, customers will be able to manage the cloud services of Amazon, FlexiScale, and GoGrid from Kaavo's dashboard, rather than having to use a different set of tools from each vendor.
More SMB Insights
White Papers
- Mobile BI: Actionable Intelligence for the Agile Enterprise
- New Visual and Wizard-Driven Paradigms for Exploring Data and Developing Analytic Workflows
Reports
- Design on a Dime: VPNs for Small and Midsize Businesses
- SaaS 2011: Adoption Soars, Yet Deployment Concerns Linger
Webcasts
- Effective IT Inventory and Asset Management: From Quagmire to Quick Fix
- Maximize ROI with Database Consolidation onto Private Clouds
Kaavo's technology is in prerelease now, and early adopters can try it at no charge. Current capabilities include server monitoring and multitier (JBoss, MySQL, etc.) configuration. Still in development are intelligent load management, software audits, patch management, run-time configuration management, and advanced notifications and alerts, all of which are due by year's end. Mazhar says Kaavo also is working on "one click" encryption so data can be encrypted for storage on cloud servers.
The startup is targeting its application, which is called Infrastructure and Middleware On Demand or IMOD, at what Mazhar refers to as general purpose cloud infrastructure -- essentially off-site data centers -- not at software as a service offerings or development platform such as Google's App Engine. Many questions are being raised about just how IT departments will make the transition to cloud services. Kaavo hopes to be part of the answer.
With about 15 employees and advisers on board, Kaavo has offices in Stamford, Conn., and Kolkata, India. It hasn't sought funding yet, but may given the activity in and growth of the cloud market. Mazhar is a Sun-certified J2EE architect and, among other experience, worked as head of component services for financial firm ING's U.S. division. Click here for a tutorial on how Kaavo works.
Related Reading
| To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy. | |
|
|
T-Shirt Giveaway: Each week we're selecting one great comment from our readers. The author of the comment will receive an InformaitonWeek Community t-shirt. So get posting! |
Subscribe to RSSResource Links
Research & Reports
SMEs and the Cloud: How Much Is Too Much?
This exclusive downloadable research report examines how outsourcing certain IT functions to a service provider can pay off for small and midsize businesses, even more than for large enterprises. But go too far into the cloud, and you may suffer in terms of maintaining agility and responsiveness to market forces.
Secure Design on a Dime: Our Top 5 Best Practices for SMEs
This exclusive downloadable research report details the security tools that small shops need, at a minimum, to prepare for the increasingly complex security and compliance environment that exists today and the top 5 ways growing businesses can stretch their IT budgets.
Current SMB Issue
- 6 Steps To Modern Data Center Architecture: A phased data center upgrade makes technical and financial sense. Randy George suggests six steps to follow.
- Manage Your Managed Service Provider: Michael A. Davis discusses strategies for how the make your MSP work for you.
- And much more!
SMB Whitepapers
- Building a Business-Ready Mobile Infrastructure
- Shared Storage for SMB Server Bundles
- No Compromise, Cost Effective, VMware Storage for the SMB
- Three unique technologies provide users with a truly modern storage experience
- Rethinking Backup and Recovery: Disk vs. Tape
- Server Room Solutions: How small to midsize IT businesses can make their IT budgets appear larger than they are
- Top Three Microsoft Exchange Concerns and EMC Solutions



