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Librato’s newly announced channel partner program will
leverage old-school workload management concepts with cutting-edge technology
to better support solution providers who want to take enterprise customers
beyond virtualization.

John Wernke, vice president of marketing for Librato, says while workload
management concepts have been around since the early days of computing, the
tenets of resource optimization and efficiencies are still applicable in
today’s data centers. Librato solutions deliver predictable performance and
optimize resources including CPU, memory and application licenses so that the
data center can run as efficiently as possible, he says.

This concept of workload management hearkens back to the late 1970s and the
1980s, when most large enterprises were using mainframes, says Wernke, and were
achieving utilization rates of 80 percent on average.  Currently,
utilization rates on x86 server architectures are only about 7 percent to 15
percent, as most enterprises designate one application per server.

“Especially in the current economy, customers are trying to get the most out of
their data center infrastructure through server consolidation, job priority
management and capacity planning. Our products help them do that in a nondisruptive
way,” says Wernke.

Librato’s solutions require no modifications or changes to the operating system
or application, enabling seamless deployments in existing environments, and
helping companies meet quality-of-service standards while maximizing resource utilization
and minimizing expenses, Wernke says.

 “Since installation doesn’t disrupt the OS, solution providers can
guarantee that workloads and applications will run predictably and reliably,”
he says.

Virtualization has been the go-to technology for enterprises looking to
increase utilization rates, consolidate servers and lower costs, but for some
customers, it’s not the answer they were searching for, says Wernke.

“Virtualization reaches this climactic point where organizations end up in the
‘realm of disillusion,’” says Wernke. Many customers who’ve virtualized their
environments find that these technologies aren’t be-alls and end-alls, he says,
especially in I/O-intensive, homogeneous environments like those found in
database-intensive or Web environments.
 
“Virtualization does make sense in heterogeneous environments, but often
deployment involves having to change your backup systems, your disaster
recovery strategy and modify your data center architecture,” Wernke says.

Librato’s monitoring and management software, however, installs easily and
rapidly between an operating system and applications running under the OS, to
allow for granular usage views and analysis.

“Our technology can install quickly and simply into the user space without changing
the OS, and it’s one of the few monitors that sits this high up in the
technology stack,” he says. “Solution providers and customers can now monitor
CPU, application and network usage much more easily, and what you see, you can
control,” he says.

Controlling resource usage is a huge step for solution providers looking to
help customers with server consolidation and increased utilization rates, and
Wernke says Librato’s software allows customers to start seeing benefits almost
immediately.

“When our software is installed, customers aren’t required to restart or recompile
systems or applications, so they can start reaping the benefits almost
immediately,” he says. Virtualization deployments can take anywhere from three
to 18 months, Wernke says.

Librato’s Load Monitor captures resource demand and usage by application, user
or group while Load Manager uses business priorities to dynamically allocate
server resources. Librato also offers Smart Suspend software, which provides
pre-emptive scheduling for grid workloads, and a high-availability solution,
Availability Services (AvS), which provides checkpoint, restart and migration
of jobs in grid environments.  

Wernke says Librato’s new channel program, which launches March 10, will offer
solution providers an enterprise solution that’s totally differentiated from
virtualization solutions and can provide many of the same benefits for
customers.

He says the company, formerly called Evergrid, previously worked informally
with a number of resellers to provide data center optimization tools for
high-performance computing (HPC)
deployments.

Wernke says that Librato’s Load Monitor and Load Manager are geared to solution
providers with expertise in large Windows and Linux deployments, especially in
Web, database and grid environments.

“It’s a good idea to consolidate regardless, but we find customers gain the
greatest efficiencies in server farms with 100 or more appliances,” he says.

Currently, Librato has a handful of solution providers signed on to the program,
and Wernke says the company doesn’t plan on an extensive recruitment effort in
the hopes of reducing commoditization and conflict between partners.

“The number of channel partners is definitely growing, but we’re being
selective about recruiting,” he says. “We want to make sure that our partners
have a unique product and a solid value proposition in their marketplace so
they’re with every other guy on the block,” he says.

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