In this briefing note, we will talk about CloudFabrix AppDimensions Platform. CloudFabrix is a new startup that is launching at the CiscoLive conference going on in Berlin. The founders of CloudFabrix are the same group of people who launched Cloupia and sold it to Cisco in 2012 (Disclaimer: I was an advisor to the executive team of Cloupia at the time).
Market Overview
As organizations steer their way through digital transformation embracing the idea of Modern Enterprise, they are using the Microservices architecture for developing modern cloud native applications. Even though Microservices is still at its infancy in terms of enterprise adoption, companies like Amazon and Netflix has shown shown a path for other organizations to follow. Along with other architecture and infrastructure challenges organizations may face in their push towards Microservices, application governance is a critical need.
Any enterprise embracing Microservices without a proper strategy for governance will increase their risk manyfold, resulting in a lower ROI with enterprise modernization. For small organizations with 50 or less Microservices, governance can be easily managed without any need for specialized tools but large organizations are going to be looking at several hundreds (or even thousands) of Microservices and, possibly, with a good mix of legacy applications. It is important for these organizations to use a standardized platform for application governance that could manage both the breadth and depth of their stack. Governance as a Platform is already a talking point among the CIOs and there are a few vendors who are trying to tackle this space.
Cloudfabrix AppDimensions Overview
CloudFabrix is a new entrant in the Governance as a Platform space and are trying to define a new category called GPaaS (Governance Platform as a Service). CloudFabrix AppDimensions is a platform for enterprise modernization where they define the application in terms of multiple governance related dimensions and then use this categorization to implement organization-wide digital governance (see the image below). This platform bridges the traditional and digital world, giving organizations seamless outcomes and insights driven governance, using Blueprints and through service discovery and data driven intelligence.
In the following section, we will do a SWOT analysis on their platform. This analysis is based on the demo they showed during the briefing session.
Strengths:
- The platform solves a more critical need for any organization embracing digital transformation by bridging the legacy world with modern cloud native applications
- Ability to enforce governance across the entire application stack
- Platform is capable of enabling the “social graph” for Microservices
- Multi – Cloud support
Weakness:
- Lack of standardization in the industry around Microservices governance puts burden on the startup but it is also an opportunity to establish themselves in a thought leadership position
- The imperative is on the company to carve out a new space related to governance
Opportunities:
- At this point, the space is not crowded with very few players.in the space. Once Microservices adoption in the enterprise increase, there will be a stronger demand for such a platform and there is an exit opportunity as larger vendors try to jump into the space
- Since they are one of the early movers in the space with other competing startups, they have a good opportunity to grab a significant portion of the market pie
Threats:
- As it is the case with any startup trying to carve a new space, larger vendors will jump in once they see the opportunity. It is a threat as well as an opportunity for CloudFabrix.
Competitors: Apcera, Weaveworks, Sysdig