Startup Develops Single, Simple Interface To Cloud ServicesStartup Develops Single, Simple Interface To Cloud Services

Kaavo, a startup founded by a former IT professional, has developed a browser interface for managing resources from multiple cloud computing providers. Not yet a year old, Kaavo is moving quickly to address what's likely to be a growing need as more companies plug into not just one, but a variety of cloud services.Founded in November, Kaavo developed its J2EE-based cloud management tool initially for Amazon's EC2 service; it's written to the EC2 APIs. Kaavo's dashboard can be used by developers and IT administrators -- the people most likely to turn the knobs on servers in the cloud -- to launch EC2 server instances, grant or revoke permissions to other users, transfer files, and other common administrative tasks.

Kaavo is working on similar tie-ins to the cloud computing services of FlexiScale and GoGrid, and founder/CEO Jamal Mazhar expects to have that work competed later this quarter or early next. Once done, customers will be able to manage the cloud services of Amazon, FlexiScale, and GoGrid from Kaavo's dashboard, rather than having to use a different set of tools from each vendor.

Kaavo's technology is in prerelease now, and early adopters can try it at no charge. Current capabilities include server monitoring and multitier (JBoss, MySQL, etc.) configuration. Still in development are intelligent load management, software audits, patch management, run-time configuration management, and advanced notifications and alerts, all of which are due by year's end. Mazhar says Kaavo also is working on "one click" encryption so data can be encrypted for storage on cloud servers.

The startup is targeting its application, which is called Infrastructure and Middleware On Demand or IMOD, at what Mazhar refers to as general purpose cloud infrastructure -- essentially off-site data centers -- not at software as a service offerings or development platform such as Google's App Engine. Many questions are being raised about just how IT departments will make the transition to cloud services. Kaavo hopes to be part of the answer.

With about 15 employees and advisers on board, Kaavo has offices in Stamford, Conn., and Kolkata, India. It hasn't sought funding yet, but may given the activity in and growth of the cloud market. Mazhar is a Sun-certified J2EE architect and, among other experience, worked as head of component services for financial firm ING's U.S. division. Click here for a tutorial on how Kaavo works.