Startup Of The Week: 3Tera

In the emerging world of cloud computing, some vendors deliver cloud services and others enable them. 3Tera, with its grid operating system, is among the latter. 3Tera's AppLogic is being used by Layered Technologies and Nirvanix to offer on-demand services. Increasingly, 3Tera is selling its software directly to corporate customers.
--John Foley 3TERA

HEADQUARTERS: Aliso Viejo, Calif.

PRODUCT: AppLogic, a grid operating system

PRINCIPALS: Barry Lynn, chairman and CEO; Peter Nickolov, co-founder, president, and COO; Bert Armijo, co-founder and senior VP

INVESTORS: $3.7 million in funding, led by distribution partner Net One Systems

EARLY CUSTOMERS: BT, Nexplore, Woopra

A SHORT HISTORY

3Tera's AppLogic grid OS runs on commodity servers connected via Gigabit Ethernet. The company introduced AppLogic nearly two years ago, and global telecom provider BT became an early adopter last year when it decided to use AppLogic to offer on-demand computing services. 3Tera's newest push is a suite of virtual appliances for disaster recovery. KEY COMPONENTS AppLogic is comprised of three subsystems. A distributed kernel provides core system services and abstracts the underlying hardware; a "disposable infrastructure" manager manages the software and hardware associated with each application; and a grid controller manages and monitors the grid. AppLogic runs on Linux, Solaris 10, and OpenSolaris servers, and support for Windows Server goes into beta testing this month. AppLogic taps into direct attached storage. AppLogic 2.3 is in beta release. EPITAPH 3Tera co-founder and the company's original CEO, Vladimir Miloushev, died in August 2007 from a brain aneurysm. He was 45 years old. Lynn called him a "brilliant, extraordinary visionary." VIRTUALIZATION AppLogic employs virtualization to package the various software components needed to assemble a full-fledged application--operating system, database, Web server, and gateways, for example. Those resources can be configured and managed from AppLogic's browser-based interface. Customers also can embed agent software from enterprise management systems such as IBM Tivoli or CA Unicenter into hosted applications, so they can be managed from a central management console. TIMELINE