UC4 Software Pushing Automation Into The Data Center
UC4's technology is designed to automate IT and business processes across physical, virtualization and cloud computing environments. The automation can be time-based or event-based, and it's able to anticipate problems before they arise by identifying trends taking place in the data center.
UC4 CEO Jason Liu says many current data center operations are handled manually but adds that this approach isn't going to be viable for much longer. "The world is becoming a lot more dynamic with virtualization and cloud computing, and automation is growing more important," Liu said in a recent interview.
UC4's automation platform also handles configuration management, application deployment, job scheduling, and all the scripting that goes into dealing with applications, Liu said
UC4's platform can also be configured to automatically add CPU capacity once usage hits a certain level. This is particularly important for application servers because it can enable companies to react to a spike in CPU usage before application performances begins to degrade, according to Liu.
A proprietary technology called complex event processing enables UC4's platform to anticipate alerts and issues before they happen by factoring external intelligence into the mix. For example, one UC4 customer, a large ecommerce provider, uses the platform to monitor application performance when the weather turns bad and causes people to spend more time shopping online, Liu said.
UC4 hasn't invested much on the marketing side thus far, Liu said, but it's actually one of the top 100 largest software companies in the world and has over 2,000 customers worldwide. UC4 acquired AppWorx, an application automation and scheduling software vendor, in 2007. Appworx was based in Bellevue, Wash., and UC4 maintains its U.S. headquarters in that city.
UC4 goes to market through a direct sales force reseller deals and through partnerships with global systems integrators. The company has a small pool of resellers in Europe and in the U.S. and is in the process of sorting out its plans for building out a channel, Liu said.