mValent Delivers Next Breakthrough in IT Infrastructure Automation
mValent increases IT efficiency
SCOTTSDALE, AZ – February 16, 2004 – mValent, Inc., the pioneering provider of change and configuration management software for Java applications infrastructure, today announced at International Data Group’s prestigious DEMO ’04 Conference the immediate availability of its flagship solution, mValent Infrastructure Automation Suite. The mValent product is being used by leading enterprise organizations including Raytheon Corporation, State Street Corporation and Worldwinner. Founded in October 2002 and led by a seasoned management team and Board of Directors, the company provides software solutions that enable IT organizations to increase efficiency by reducing configuration-related down-time and speeding applications to production, thereby solving one of today’s most fundamental infrastructure challenges.
The dynamic demands being placed on IT infrastructure by web applications is causing a mismatch between business needs and the flexibility of the infrastructure team to respond to these needs. In particular, the tasks around infrastructure design, build and maintenance has resulted in a morass of configurations and highly manual, error-prone processes that lead to “Configuration Chaos” -- a paralyzing state facing many IT departments.
“Optimizing the processes around configuration and change management for application infrastructure, such as application and database servers, is often a challenge in highly distributed and complex deployment environments,” stated Sandra Rogers, research director, Web services and integration software at IDC. “Automating these processes from development through production should help reduce total cost of ownership, boost IT staff efficiency and improve service levels.”
mValent Infrastructure Automation Suite Details
The mValent Infrastructure Automation Suite automates the building and maintenance of complex infrastructure configurations for enterprise Java applications, throughout their lifecycle from development to production, across distributed and off-shore locations. mValent enables IT for the first time to reduce and prevent configuration-related down-time; achieve repeatability and confidence in infrastructure environment setup; and greatly increasing the speed and rate at which applications get to production. Key capabilities include:
A centralized repository that captures, models and tracks infrastructure configuration meta-data, and the interdependencies between components
Rich client interface that provides IT infrastructure teams with actionable tools to visualize, design, change, and build dynamic application environments
A process automation framework which enables IT infrastructure teams to work collaboratively in automating their current manual tasks and processes for configuration and change management
A peer-to-peer platform for synchronizing distributed and off-shore development, QA, staging, and production environments; and non-invasive, agent-less, minimal infrastructure requirements and impact.
“The complexity of building and managing the infrastructure supporting Web applications is an ongoing challenge for IT,” explained Cameron Haight, research director, Gartner, Inc. “Web applications run on multi-tier, cross dependent architectures that are constantly changing with new applications and upgrades, requiring multi-disciplinary IT teams working together through long, manual, and often error-prone deployment processes. Customers should look for tools that automate the infrastructure build and maintenance process, thus enabling IT to reduce configuration-related downtime and be more responsive to the business units by deploying applications more rapidly.”
Customer Applications of the mValent Infrastructure Automation Suite
mValent’s customers include large and mid-sized enterprise IT organizations that manage and maintain complex application infrastructures. In one example, a very large brokerage firm manages a financial benefits portal that uses exceptionally complex configuration files. The IT team is using mValent to consolidate configuration information into a centralized repository; create/enforce change process by multiple IT staff; ensure changes are valid prior to deployment; and design the next generation infrastructure architecture across three data centers.
In another example, WorldWinner, the leader of online game competitions for cash and prizes which hosts over 2 million structured tournaments per month, has deployed mValent’s software to manage its infrastructure and growing mix of online competitions, various tournaments and distribution partners.
“We’re using mValent to capture our current infrastructure information and ‘institutionalize’ our configuration change process and knowledge,” said Joe Bai, vice president of technology, WorldWinner. “Our online game business is driven by rapid changes with new games, new players and new distribution partners on a regular basis. With mValent, a limited staff can manage this complex, constantly changing environment as we grow to millions of game competitions and players.”
“mValent is responding to a growing demand for increasing IT infrastructure efficiency,” explained Swapnil Shah, president and CEO, mValent, Inc. “Through extensive, first-hand experience with leading enterprise IT infrastructure departments via many customer deployments and field trials, mValent has developed a solution for one of the biggest operational challenge facing IT today: infrastructure change and configuration management. We are proud to be working with so many world-class IT organizations in this exciting new area.”
Availability and Pricing
The mValent Infrastructure Automation Suite version 2.0 is available for immediate purchase. Pricing is based on the number of IT users, with entry-level deployments starting at $50,000. Interested parties are encouraged to call mValent at 978.851.3600 for more information.
About mValent, Inc.
mValent, Inc. delivers a software solution that automates the building and maintenance of complex infrastructure configurations for enterprise Java applications, throughout their entire lifecycle from development to production, across distributed and off-shore locations. The mValent Infrastructure Automation Suite enables IT organizations to increase efficiency by reducing configuration-related down-time and speeding applications to production. mValent is headquartered in Tewksbury, Massachusetts and is privately held with investments from Charles River Ventures, IDG Ventures and Polaris Venture Partners. For more information, visit mValent at http://www.mvalent.com