Ravello Systems helps migrate applications between on-premise datacenters and cloud environments using their Cloud Application Hypervisor technology. This allows encapsulation of all VMs needed for an application, making migration seamless across clouds. Ravello is offered as a SaaS, allowing users to deploy applications visually to any cloud. Their technology brings parity between development and production environments, removes infrastructure lock-in concerns, and allows seamless migration. While being new, key advantages are low cost, visual editor, and encapsulation above host hypervisors. Competitors include PaaS providers.

1. Ravello
Systems
A
Briefing
Note
By
Krishnan
Subramanian
Ravello
Systems
A
Briefing
Note
by
Krishnan
Subramanian
Company:
Ravello
Systems
(www.ravellosystems.com)
Market:
DevOps
and
Application
Migration
Products:
Cloud
Application
Hypervisor
Summary:
Ravello
Systems
helps
migrate
your
applications
from
inside
the
organization’s
datacenter
to
cloud
and
across
the
cloud.
Ravello’s
Cloud
Application
Hypervisor
encapsulates
all
the
virtual
m achines
needed
for
an
application
to
make
the
migration
seamless.
Ravello’s
technology
can
also
be
used
in
the
application
development
lifecycle
by
offering
developers
a
development
platform
similar
to
their
production
environment
and
seamlessly
m ove
the
apps
from
one
to
another

2. Ravello
Systems
A
Briefing
Note
By
Krishnan
Subramanian
Market
Overview
As
the
adoption
of
public
cloud
grows
in
the
enterprise
market
and
hybrid
clouds
are
seen
as
the
dominant
enterprise
strategy
for
years
to
come,
the
role
of
application
development
platforms
in
the
cloud
is
becoming
increasingly
important.
It
ranges
from
using
the
traditional
middleware
on
top
of
public
or
private
clouds
to
Platform
as
a
Service
on
the
other
side.
Application
Development
Platform
segment
in
the
cloud
is
a
bit
chaotic
at
present
with
organizations
still
trying
to
figure
out
the
right
model
for
their
hybrid
cloud
efforts.
Enterprises
are
moving
their
traditional
applications
to
the
private
cloud
while
also
exploring
the
modern
distributed
approach
to
software
development.
While
the
use
of
traditional
middleware
on
private
cloud
is
still
preferred
by
enterprises
wanting
to
deal
with
legacy
applications,
use
private
PaaS
is
seen
as
the
right
strategy
for
building
modern
applications
in
a
hybrid
cloud
environment.
As
the
market
matures
in
the
coming
two
years,
the
options
in
front
of
the
enterprise
developers
will
become
clearer.
In
the
mean
time,
enterprises
IT
is
going
to
focus
on
the
business
value,
lock-­‐in
risks,
security
models,
etc.
while
also
finding
a
way
to
keep
their
developers
from
going
to
hosted
solutions
without
their
knowledge
(Rogue
IT).
This
opens
up
opportunity
for
both
PaaS
providers
and
those
vendors
focusing
on
management
of
hybrid
or
federated
clouds.
Ravello
Systems
Overview
The
technology
behind
Ravello
Systems
is
built
in
such
a
way
that
it
slices
above
the
hypervisor
of
the
host
server
and
encapsulates
the
entire
application
with
Cloud
Application
Hypervisor.
With
this
technology,
one
can
migrate
the
application
development
environment
between
private
cloud
and
public
cloud
or
between
two
or
more
cloud
providers.
The
fact
that
the
slicing
and
encapsulation
happens
above
the
host
hypervisor
level
allows
the
migration
of
the
app
to
any
cloud
without
worrying
about
operating
systems
or
hypervisors.
Ravello
supports
full
overlay
network
and
storage
abstraction
that
allows
easy
optimization
of
the
application
for
any
cloud.
Ravello
is
offered
as
SaaS,
which
allows
users
to
log
into
their
platform,
upload
the
VMs,
draw
their
application
and
dependencies
using
a
visual
editor
and
deploy
to
any
cloud.
The
blueprint
feature
makes
the
replication
of
the
process
seamless
and
offers
IT
an
opportunity
to
deliver
a
dev
and
test
environment
exactly
similar
to
the
production
environment.
In
short,
developers
can
develop
their
app
on
any
cloud
with
an
environment
similar
to
the
production
environment
and
seamlessly
deploy
the
app
to
any
cloud.
Advantages
-­‐ Brings
parity
between
the
dev-­‐test
environment
and
production
environment
-­‐ Since
it
is
offered
as
SaaS,
the
costs
are
low
making
the
service
affordable.
Low
cost
added
with
the
agility
offered
by
the
hosted
model
makes
their
service
very
competitive
-­‐ Visual
editor
and
encapsulation
above
the
host
hypervisor
makes
the
migration
process,
even
if
the
application
uses
multiple
VMs,
seamless
and
fast

3. Ravello
Systems
A
Briefing
Note
By
Krishnan
Subramanian
-­‐ Eliminates
one
of
the
biggest
enterprise
concerns
regarding
public
cloud
services
by
removing
infrastructure
lock-­‐in
risks
Disadvantages
-­‐ Being
a
new
company,
they
will
have
to
fight
for
developer
mindshare
vis
a
vis
PaaS.
Even
though
they
are
selling
directly
to
IT,
it
is
important
to
get
the
developer
mindshare
to
avoid
PaaS
based
rogue
IT
from
impacting
their
importance
-­‐ Since
cloud
application
hypervisor
packages
all
the
virtual
machines
and
storage
needed
for
the
application,
the
mobility
is
dependent
on
bandwidth
costs,
latency,
etc.
Competitors
Even
though
the
market
segment
is
still
at
its
infancy,
Ravello
Systems
face
competition
from
Ø PaaS
providers
Ø Big
vendors
like
Microsoft
and
VMware
who
are
focusing
on
application
management
to
smaller
vendors
like
AppZero
Ø Cloud
management
players
like
Rightscale,
enStratus,
etc.
Summary
Ravello
Systems
offers
a
powerful
service
with
a
very
good
visual
editor
that
makes
application
development
and
migration
seamless
for
enterprise
IT.
They
are
entering
the
market
at
the
right
time
as
enterprise
adoption
of
public
clouds
is
increasing
and,
slowly,
the
need
to
avoid
vendor
lock-­‐in
becoming
the
focus
of
CIOs
and
enterprise
IT
managers.
With
no
standards
in
sight,
a
service
like
the
one
offered
by
Ravello
Systems
is
a
right
fit
for
the
enterprise
IT.