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Does Israeli startup hold key to ASP success? From the451.com
Jun 08, 2000
The plans, which are expected to be unveiled within the next two weeks, come
amid a wave of hype from the ASP industry that has also sparked a surge of
skepticism about whether ASPs can reliably deliver the cost and efficiency
benefits they promise.
Mark Roberts, ASP strategy director at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, said if
Digital Fuel can indeed deliver the combination of service-level monitoring,
usage analysis, billing integration and security it promises, it might have
the key to the marketplace. "People have been crying out for this kind of
thing," he said. "If they can turn the concept into reality they will have a
sustainable business way down the line."
Digital Fuel says that ASP Engine, the company's forthcoming beta, will
serve as a multi-functional software probe implanted in ASP servers. It will
monitor the level of service in real-time, and provide immediate feedback on
a range of functions including service bottlenecks, CPU performance and disk
quota allocation.
When it detects a breach of a service level agreement, it will automatically
interface with billing systems and update the customer's bill. Digital fuel
says it is already working with an undisclosed world-leading billing systems
provider.
"The reason businesses are reluctant to work on the ASP model is because the
Web is unreliable for mission-critical applications," said Benny Lehmann,
founder and chief executive of Digital Fuel. "Today, ASPs cannot provide
their customers with a way to monitor whether an SLA was breached or not."
The probes can also be configured to collect information on usage trends,
providing instant feedback to software companies who often require several
versions to discover bugs and address user complaints. Cap Gemini says,
however, that the marketplace is already teeming with niche players offering
various components to solve these problems. Digital Fuel even faces
competition on its home turf, from ModusNovo, another Israeli startup backed
by Sequoia Capital and Cisco.
Nevertheless, by integrating its service and usage monitoring with a
security component, Digital Fuel may be able to secure an edge in the
market. According to a recent Gartner Group report, the application level is
'by far' the most difficult challenge facing the Web hosting and ASP market.
"It is no longer clear who is responsible for the security of Web servers,"
stated the report. "There are many companies rushing to the hosting and ASP
market - many of them have no experience in security." Gartner recommends
that organizations running high-value applications should employ
'preventative measures' such as Perfecto Technologies' Appshield and
Entercept by ClickNet.
Digital Fuel claims its package will provide a real-time defense that
immediately signals an alert when security is breached inside a server. "Our
probe knows that users from one area are not supposed to touch another
database," said Lehman. "It knows who is supposed to be where
automatically."
This week Digital Fuel completed an initial $3m round of seed financing
including $500,000 invested by Shlomo Kramer, one of the three founders of
Check Point Software, the Israeli leader of the firewall market who has also
taken a seat on the board. Israel Seed Partners, a Jerusalem-based VC fund,
led the financing and provided the remainder of the funds.
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