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Springsource Snaps Up Web App Monitoring And Management Software Maker Hyperic

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Enterprise Java house Springsource today announced it has acquired substantially all of the assets of Hyperic, the open source leader in web application and infrastructure management (see our earlier coverage). With the acquisition, SpringSource offers a comprehensive product set for powering the entire Java application lifecycle, with lean and powerful solutions for building, running and managing enterprise applications. By accelerating and unifying the application lifecycle from developer to data center and bridging the divide between development and IT operations teams, SpringSource can meet all the needs of companies building and deploying business-critical Java applications.

San Francisco-based Hyperic, provides web application performance management software that is used by numerous Fortune 1000 entities, including many of the world’s largest SaaS and consumer web companies. Hyperic’s solutions monitor and manage the performance and availability of the entire application stack from hardware and operating systems to virtual machines, web servers, application servers, databases, and more — giving IT and web operations a unified view and control of the performance and health of their entire web infrastructure.

SpringSource has a successful track record incorporating open source technologies into its offerings, creating the industry’s most comprehensive and productive solution set for the entire Java application lifecycle while supporting and contributing to the related open source communities. With the acquisition, SpringSource solutions now cover the entire application lifecycle including:

  • Build
    SpringSource leads enterprise Java innovation with Spring, the de facto standard programming model for enterprise Java applications. More than half of the Fortune 500 power their Java applications with Spring, and about two thirds of all Java developers use Spring. More than 70 percent of enterprises cite improved productivity, faster project completion, improved portability and application quality as top reasons for using Spring. SpringSource is driving even higher levels of innovation with Groovy and Grails, a dynamic language web application stack offering productivity benefits rivaling Ruby on Rails, but on a proven and scalable Spring-powered Java platform.
  • Run
    SpringSource is at the forefront of rapid enterprise adoption of lightweight application server runtimes and contributes 95 percent of bug fixes to Apache Tomcat, the most popular application server with 68 percent usage across IT organizations. SpringSource tc Server is an enterprise version of Tomcat that provides developers with the lightweight server they want paired with the operational, management and diagnostic capabilities businesses need to deploy Tomcat widely across the enterprise. SpringSource is also ensuring enterprise Java runtimes are prepared to handle virtualized and cloud computing needs with SpringSource dm Server, the leading OSGi-based Java server for modular next-generation applications.
  • Manage
    Businesses require application management and monitoring capabilities that provide deep and transparent insight into application performance and service levels as requests flow through the web servers, application servers, databases, message queues and other application infrastructure deployed on physical, virtual, and cloud computing platforms. With the addition of Hyperic, SpringSource is uniquely positioned to address modern application requirements and provide the single source of insight behind the behavior and performance of every layer of an application. Thousands of companies worldwide already depend on Hyperic for their web application and infrastructure management as well as their IT service level commitments.

“This is the marriage of two companies that share a common vision for the future of enterprise solutions and the application lifecycle. SpringSource is the default choice for many developers and IT architects creating Java applications, and Hyperic is the default choice for many IT operations professionals that need to manage those applications,” said Javier Soltero, formerly CEO of Hyperic and now CTO of Management Products at SpringSource. “Managing Enterprise Java requires visibility up and down the stack and across a company’s network and data center, including virtualization and cloud computing environments. The divide that separates development from IT operations has just become a lot smaller.”

(Via CNET)

Hyperic Launches BI Platform Operations IQ

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Hyperic today announced the availability of Hyperic Operations IQ, an advanced business intelligence platform for IT and web operations teams.

This new systems intelligence solution gives executives detailed reporting and analysis on critical data that was previously only available to highly technical end-users. Hyperic IQ provides concise graphical views and comprehensive, information-rich reports for users that analyze IT and web operations service levels, efficiencies, staffing initiatives and operations strategies. This business intelligence view into IT and web operations enables key decision-makers to monitor and report on any metric, any resource and any datacenter across their entire infrastructure to ensure ongoing adherence to service levels commitments.

Hyperic IQ makes operations metrics transparent, so operations personnel can spend more time managing their critical infrastructure, and less time building and distributing performance reports. IQ ships with built-in reports that provide immediate value out-of-the-box. For individual reporting needs, a custom report builder allows any user to build reports from scratch with a friendly drag and drop interface.

Hyperic’s Hyperic HQ software auto-discovers and updates asset inventories and allows operations teams to quickly pinpoint, correct, and prevent problems at every major technology layer—including hardware, networks, virtualization, cloud environments and deep into applications. Hyperic Operations IQ adds advanced systems intelligence to the product by transforming systems and application performance metrics into concise, highly visual reports that can be used for analysis, evaluation, planning and strategic decision-making.

Additional features of Hyperic Operations IQ include:

  • A rich array of report elements and formats. IQ reports present rich, easy-to-read charts and graphs, and can be published in multiple formats including PDF, Rich Text Format, Excel, HTML and Flash
  • The ability to analyze information from virtually any Hyperic HQ data, allowing executives to view and share exception reporting via stacked graphs, Service-Level Agreement (SLA) compliance reports and virtualization resource utilization metrics
  • A variety of chart types, including gauges, multi-metric line charts, bar graphs, and stacked charts make it easy to spot big problems, understand trends, and evaluate results against objectives and plans.
  • Push and pull access to operations intelligence. Authorized users can run reports on-demand from any browser. Users that are responsible for periodic reporting on key indicators and service level summaries can schedule reports to be run and delivered by email on a scheduled basis.
  • Comprehensive authorization and access control. Companies can use IQ and still comply with stringent security and data access policies. IQ supports access control at the user, resource, and report level.

Hyperic Operations IQ was built with Jaspersoft’s Business Intelligence software, which is tightly integrated into Hyperic HQ Enterprise. The two companies have enjoyed a close relationship since 2007, and previously have delivered integrated reporting capabilities for the community edition of Hyperic HQ.

Hyperic IQ is now available. Introductory pricing starts at $5,000 for existing Hyperic customers.

Hyperic Releases HQ 4.0, Hires Former Salesforce Exec

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Hyperic today announced HQ 4.0, the next evolution of its systems monitoring and management application. The new release addresses the growing needs of businesses embracing Amazon cloud services to create affordable and scalable IT deployment strategies.

With today’s release, Hyperic HQ is the first software that enables the modern enterprise to monitor its Amazon Web Services securely alongside internal infrastructure. It is also the first enterprise-class monitoring and management software offered for deployment and payment directly though Amazon Web Services.

Datacenters have a fixed capacity for handling application traffic at any given time and distribute resources to match average peak capacity. Businesses deploying in Amazon’s cloud now have access to unlimited number of resources, and pay only for the services they need at any given time. To remain cost-effective, operations teams need to frequently tune web and application server capacity to match fluctuations in demand.

Hyperic HQ 4.0 addresses this need for a new generation of monitoring and management tool that will help enterprises adopt cloud computing strategies with confidence, by better equipping operations teams to perform repetitive management tasks more efficiently. Traditionally, installing a new server and deploying it into production was a lengthy process that took place over days or weeks. Now, with cloud providers like Amazon offering the ability to rapidly deploy servers in minutes and pay by the hour, companies need a way to ensure consistent monitoring oversight of their web operations that is just as fast and flexible.

In developing the new release, Hyperic has drawn upon its extensive experience in providing the automation and visibility needed to maintain application performance in datacenters using virtualization software. Hyperic HQ currently manages over 3,500 VMware and XenServer virtualization deployments. Also referred to as “private clouds,” these environments consist of both physical and virtual servers, and typically support high rates of change as virtual servers are easily added, subtracted or moved to improve server utilization and maintain service levels.

The new Hyperic HQ 4.0 release starts by streamlining the process of adding new software resources into management. After auto-discovery registers the new resources into inventory, a new process of server cloning allows all configuration profiles for log data collection, security and services checks to be immediately applied. Coupled with global alert templates for resource types, the entire system of monitoring and rules for warning of performance problems can be incorporated in under a minute.

In addition, the release also addresses additional areas of concern for virtualized and cloud-based deployment including security, application management and capacity planning. A new server communication protocol allows agents monitoring external resources to always initiate communication with the HQ Server in order to meet to security protocols and operate across firewalls. Despite the uni-directional communication, the agent still maintains a full range of capabilities including the ability to update and run diagnostics remotely, and issue corrective control actions such as a service restart or running garbage collection to free memory.

Additionally, a new capacity planning function automatically analyzes historical performance and projects the future resource trends of any given management metric. This function allows users to quickly assess and predict future trends, and proactively manage capacity needs to anticipate demand or conserve costs.

Also part of the 4.0 release, Hyperic HQ Enterprise 4.0 will be available as a fully configured system on Amazon’s Web Services. An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) preconfigured for Amazon’s Elastic Block Storage (EBS) is expected to be available later this month. The new distribution will be available directly on Amazon’s DevPay service for a low initiation fee and a monthly charge based on the amount of management data being collected to the HQ Server. A familiar arrangement to businesses looking to embrace the cloud, there will be no contract term and users will simply pay for how much value they are deriving from the Hyperic HQ Enterprise application.

Hyperic also announced the appointment of Matthew Stodolnic to the newly created company position of vice president of marketing. Stodolnic, who joins the Hyperic executive team after seven years with Salesforce.com, will be responsible for the company’s overall marketing strategy and further expansion into cloud computing.

Hyperic Announces Partner Network Program and Fresh European OEM Partner

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Open source web infrastructure management provider Hyperic today announced the Hyperic Partner Network Program, a comprehensive and tiered expansion of its existing global partner program. This enables companies seeking to deliver value-added management solutions to their customers a faster, proven road to success by incorporating Hyperic’s software offerings.

These include web application performance monitoring software, Hyperic HQ; cross-platform, cross-language library and command-line tool SIGAR; and CloudStatus, Hyperic’s latest product for monitoring the performance of cloud computing environments.

The Hyperic Partner Network Program offers several tiers designed to meet the differing needs of companies interested in white labeling, reselling, or referring Hyperic HQ, SIGAR or CloudStatus. The program also recognizes partners contributing to the Hyperic community and its technology, with the launch of “Hyperic Ready” certification.

Hyperic has more than 30 strategic partnerships around the world, with established and significant momentum in federal and European markets. Hyperic’s recent news includes an OEM partnership with Dalet Digital Media Solutions, a French media monitoring company who built a broadcast industry vertical monitoring and management solution using Hyperic HQ Enterprise, and a reseller partnership with SOPERA for distribution and support in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The expanded Hyperic Partner Network Program comprises four categories:the “Powered by Hyperic” OEM Partner Program, “Hyperic Certified” Reseller Partner Program, The Hyperic Referral Program and “Hyperic Ready” Program for Software Vendors.

Hyperic

Industry Moves: Kathryn Rose Joins Hyperic As CFO, Ron Oglesby Leaves Glasshouse for Dell

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Open source web infrastructure management provider Hyperic (earlier coverage) today announced it has named Kathryn Rose as chief financial officer (CFO). In this newly created position, Rose will be responsible for the company’s financial operations plan as well as being part of the executive team that sets strategic direction.

Rose brings nearly 20 years expertise in financial management and capital markets at both large public companies and smaller, privately held startups—much of that in the tech sector—to Hyperic. Her CFO-level roles include successful tenures at global consumer products company Leapfrog as well as at Autodesk, Sage Systems and Foresight Energy Company. She has also held high-level financial positions at Merrill Lynch and Chevron. Rose’s work ranges from raising $200 million in venture capital, to tight integration of financial and strategic functions across global enterprises to increase profitability.

Rose holds an MBA in finance from the University of California at Berkeley, and a BA from the University of Texas, Austin.

Glasshouse Technologies has lost its Director of Virtualization and Architecture Services, Ron Oglesby, after just one year. Oglesby co-authored two best seller books about VMware Infrastructure: VMware ESX Server: Advanced Technical Design Guide and VMware Infrastructure 3: Advanced Technical Design Guide and Advanced Operations Guide. Rumor has it Oglesby was hired by Dell.

Hyperic CloudStatus Now Monitors Google App Engine

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We’ve covered Hyperic before, most recently when they added monitoring for Citrix XenServer environments to their Hyperic HQ service. The company just announced that their CloudStatus service now also supports Google App Engine, after launching with advanced monitoring for Amazon EC2 services. Support for additional cloud providers is planned for the coming months.

Update: check out the excellent analysis on GigaOM as well.

The addition of App Engine monitoring is designed to provide customers with the ability to obtain up-to-the-second perspectives on performance and network connectivity from both inside and outside the App Engine platform. The initial release will allow for continuous monitoring of the health and performance of major App Engine infrastructure, including the DataStore, Memcache, and global network connectivity. CloudStatus uses App Engine-specific management plug-ins to collect measurements that provide administrators and developers with unprecedented insight into the health of the App Engine platform.

As part of this development, Hyperic is also announcing the availability of the first cloud-specific management plug-in for its flagship product, Hyperic HQ. The new plug-in extends the full monitoring and management capabilities of Hyperic HQ to App Engine users, enabling them to examine the performance of their own custom applications running in the cloud. This plug-in is free for download on HyperForge.

Hyperic