News

Start-Up Launches Cloud Management Tool for AWS

• By David Ramel
• 08/10/2016

In a new report, research firm Gartner Inc. noted that the depth and complexity of Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) offerings -- and the pace of new service introductions -- lend themselves to professional assistance for optimized use by enterprises.

"Less-sophisticated customers may become overwhelmed by the range of possible options; training and third-party assistance are strongly recommended," Gartner said in a recent Magic Quadrant report. Also, it said, "Customers must proactively seek the depth of sales and solution architecture engagement they need to be successful; this may require professional services, not just support."

As if on cue, start-up Fugue Inc. yesterday announced what it claims is an industry first: a "next-generation system for automating and continuously managing cloud infrastructure."

The tool is aimed at AWS for now, though support for other cloud providers is coming. That's not surprising, as AWS is the pre-eminent cloud services vendor and Fugue management includes AWS veterans.

"Fugue uniquely operates as the foundation layer for cloud-based enterprise application platforms, offering developers the ability to program and operate their entire cloud infrastructure across compute, storage, network and data services," the company said in a statement yesterday. "Following creation of the required cloud infrastructure, Fugue then automates the enforcement of corporate governance, compliance policies and change controls."

According to the Fugue Web site, the company's namesake product helps enterprises "leverage pre-built AWS best practices to migrate new workloads or optimize the management of existing workloads with efficiency and speed. Easy to adopt and use, Fugue operates within your AWS account and works with your existing applications, toolchains and workflows."

Key components of the Fugue system include: Ludwig, a modular, statically typed programming language for declaring cloud infrastructure as code; the Fugue Conductor, used to automate cloud infrastructure operations; and the Fugue CLI, a command-line tool to initiate processes.

"The Fugue Conductor runs on an instance inside your cloud account and within its own isolated network, which it creates," the Fugue product site says. "It has no open ports and outbound communications are solely with cloud provider APIs."

Fugue's news release yesterday explained more about its new offering -- described in the context of a new era emphasizing the use of containers, serverless computing and immutable infrastructure -- and how it works with the AWS platform.

"The Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud service provider abstracts the underlying IT infrastructure and provides services programmers leverage for running their applications," the company said. "Fugue operates as the layer between the cloud and the services that further automate the deployment and management of middleware, databases and other services that support applications. Easy to adopt and use, Fugue is widely compatible with existing tools and practices. It streamlines configuration management, container orchestration, and CI/CD workflows."

The company is conducting a Sept. 13 Webinar to introduce its new product, and in the meantime invites interested enterprises to schedule a demo of its technology.