Startup Shifts Applications

Canadian startup Trigence Corp. announced its first product today -- a software product with the ability to drag-and-drop applications from one part of an IT infrastructure to another.

The Ottawa-based company's product, AE 2.1, uses a combination of C, C++, and Java to "wrap" individual data center applications and move them to a central database or another server. This removes the need to manually reinstall the applications.

Trigence was foundedjust over two years ago, and has so far received $6.1 million in funding from VenGrowth Investment Fund Inc., BDC Venture Capital, Axis Investment Fund, and Sbemco International.

Trigence has decided to target data centers in mid-sized companies in North America and Europe.

Trigence is marketing the technology as a way of removing data center complexity by isolating the application from the server and the operating system on which it runs. The application is then moved quickly via a graphical user interface (GUI) to the data base or other servers.Policies can also be applied to applications, automatically redistributing them if a server fails. Chuck Colford, Trigence's CEO and founder says, If a server or even an application fails, the application can be brought back in service on another machine without user or IT operator intervention.”

Gordon Haff, senior analyst at Illuminata Inc. says some applications will be easier to move than others. “It’s easier to encapsulate a well-defined and well-understood application -- as opposed to a large, very complex, application.”

Trigence may also find itself up against established technologies that solve similar problems by focusing not just on the application, but the server and even the operating system. These include products from VMware Inc. and automated provisioning offerings from IBM Tivoli and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ)

Undeterred, Colford says that Trigence is planning to work with IBM Tivoli and HP in the future.

At the moment, Trigence AE 2.1 is only available for the Linux operating system. “We centered on Linux because it has very strong adoption -- IBM and HP are moving their customers to Linux,” says Colford. But he confirmed that the company is planning to launch a Unix version later this year.— James Rogers, Site Editor, Next-gen Data Center Forum