The grid computing specialist and former ISPCON star releases a slew of updates to its core product.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [June 12, 2007]

Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based grid computing provider 3Tera released AppLogic 2.0, updating the GUI and the capabilities of its software. When the company unveiled its product at the last ISPCON, it was the star of the show.

This year, is was just showcasing upgrades, but there were so many new features that we can only focus on the highlights.

CLI
Bert Armijo, vice president of product development at 3Tera, points to one feature that didn't seem too impressive to us at first glance. He says that in the past, users occasionally needed to go into a Linux shell to manage an appliance. Now they can click on the representation of the server within AppLogic and open the CLI in their browser. He says that connecting the actual server to its virtual representation is no simple thing. "You no longer need to know the name of what you're loggin on to," he says.

Making it easier to manage each application, he says, has encouraged users to use the system more. "Applications are multiplying like the proverbial rabbit, just because we made it easier to add another application and another firewall."

Applications
Another key new feature is slightly higher level applications. The company has no intention of working in vertical markets, designing, say, a CRM system for restaurants (although if its customers build one on the AppLogic system, 3Tera might, in the future, be able to help them sell such a system to other 3Tera customers). "We don't build CRM and accounting applications, but we can help an ISP get into SAAS," says Armijo.

The company has build a monitoring application (called MON) that enables custom dashboards and real time viewing of transactions. It has build a secure SSN application (called INSSL) that makes it easier to set up an e-commerce site. It has built several similar applications that are key tools for profitable websites.

Support for expensive servers
When 3Tera built AppLogic, the company assumed that users would deploy the cheapest available servers. Recently, the company has allowed servers to have more than one CPU per appliance. It also supports dual core CPUs. It now supports multiple hard drives on each server.

In addition, AppLogic supports partial CPU usage (down to 0.01 of a CPU). Armijo says that partial servers are useful for products in testing that are not yet deployed and for some applications that don't need much (such as firewalls).

The compliance future
Armijo says that companies are anticipating storage needs running into terabytes and even petabytes. Also, depending on how digital discovery is interpreted, courts might ask a company to run an application in the state it was in on a specific date. If companies need the ability to roll back several generations, their storage needs will grow in ways they aren't anticipating now.

The rest of the future
3Tera is planning to serve both larger and smaller customers. Which larger customers? Today, the company announced that the UK ILEC, BT, is a customer.

As to smaller customers, some startups want to set up demonstration applications. 3Tera can offer, say, a Web 2.0 startup access to what it calls the Beta Environment for as little as a few dollars per month.

"In the past, our customers wanted 10 or 20 dedicated servers and a price of $2,000 per month was a good deal for them," says Armijo. These newer smaller prospects are raising capital and face the "chicken and egg problem" because they need to be up and running to get capital and they cannot get up and running until they receive capital.

"Users don't care about what hardware you're running or where your data center is," says Armijo. "The differentiation for a Web 2.0 company isn't the hardware, it's the ideas in the heads of the founders. There are a huge number of software companies in the $5 million to $20 million in revenue range. They don't want to spend $500,000 on hardware. They could use utility computing."

The mission statement
Armijo has a clear idea of what his company delivers. "We enable people to build profitable online businesses without having to own or touch the hardware."

You should be able to do the same thing.

—End