Today we’d like to introduce you to Prakash Manden.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Prakash. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
FittedCloud was founded by a team of entrepreneurs with extensive experience in high performance/infrastructure/system level software development. After our previous startup (VeloBit – which was an SSD caching software company) was sold to HGST, we became part of the Cloud Infrastructure business unit at HGST. Despite the many advantages of public clouds, it was becoming clear to us that cost management was becoming a huge challenge for customers. In public clouds, customers pay for the resources provisioned and not necessarily what is used (contrary to popular belief). The burden of right-sizing resources is entirely on customers. Often customers apply traditional data center resource allocation mentality to clouds, resulting in significantly wasted spending. Public cloud resource utilization is 10-20% of provisioned capacity as per IDC. Gartner Analysts state that it is not unusual for customers to spend 2x to 3x higher than expectations.
Our conviction about the need for a solution that helped customers addressed this challenge became crystal clear when we came across a customer situation where the monthly spend had steadily increased to about $500K a month on Amazon Web Services (AWS). After spending some serious time analyzing their environment they had figured out that they could save 50% of the cost.
However, making optimization changes manually was not easy. In some cases, it was possible to right size resources manually but required downtime. In some cases, it was just not possible easily. We strongly felt that the with our experience and background a solution could be created which could automatically and transparently optimize cloud resource provisioning.
Machine learning could be used to learn utilization patterns so that resource provisioning could be done most optimally!
FittedCloud was founded in December of 2015 with this vision! Within the short year and a half, we have been able to develop a solution which is currently being used by customers large and small.
FittedCloud has been featured in Analysts’ reports from 451 Research and Storage Swiss. FittedCloud is currently an Advanced Technology Partner with AWS and was one of the four companies features in AWS Partner SA roundup in May 2017. FittedCloud currently has 2 issued and a few pending patents.
Public cloud adoption has gained significant momentum in the recent years, and we are truly excited about our machine learning driven cloud cost optimization technology that helps customers manage their cloud environments automatically, transparently and optimally!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
As is the case with any startups, it’s not been a smooth road, and we never expected it to be either. In a startup environment, challenges come up every step of the way. Some minor hiccups were easily overcome whereas some were significant and required strategic vision, thinking and execution. I list below a few major challenges we faced.
First, bootstrapping a company is not easy (we have not taken any outside investments so far). We were adamant from the beginning that until we develop a product and establish product-market fit, we will not see outside investment. Fortunately, we had a strong and committed core team and was able to expand the team further to develop first versions of our product.
Secondly, we miscalculated the market needs and customer preferences in the beginning and had to tweak our direction to align with customer expectations. Technological transformations do not happen overnight and Cloud resource optimization is no different. We learned that many customers preferred to have ‘visibility’ into cloud management first, followed by deeper insights and then full automation. We had started with full automation which was a bit ahead of its time. We were able to successfully add visibility and insights into our product capabilities.
FittedCloud – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
FittedCloud is a pioneer in machine learning driven public cloud resource optimization that helps customers reduce their spend significantly. In public cloud customer pay for resources provisioned and not what is actually used. As per industry analysts, it is not uncommon for public cloud bills to be 2x to 3x higher than expectations. Public cloud resource utilization is 10%-20% of the provisioned capacity.
The burden of making sure that right-sized resources are provisioned to avoid wasted spending is entirely on customers. Typically, customers try to optimize by monitoring, analyzing resource utilization and making resource provisioning changes manually, which can be time-consuming, tedious and error-prone. In larger environments, a manual approach is simply not practical.
FittedCloud’s patented machine learning driven cloud resource optimization solution helps customers reduce spend and better manage their cloud environments by providing visibility into their environments, insights through actionable cost optimization advisories and semi/full automation of resource optimization. Machine learning algorithms are used to ensure optimum resource allocation.
Primary differentiation of our solution is the emphasis on automation of resource optimization using machine learning algorithms. Existing solutions are focused on cost management through reporting and recommendations.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
In the context of FittedCloud, I would define success as building a solution that helps customers reduce the complexity of managing public clouds, reduce wasted spending, and increase operational efficiency and reduce operational risks.
Personally, I have never really looked for success and designed or planned my life for success (might sound strange I know). I am a firm believer that ‘success’ will follow anyone that works hard (very hard) and takes full advantage of the skills and talents one has. Being able to make an impact by contributing to building something bigger than myself, being able to help a fellow human being in any meaningful way could all be considered criteria for success.
Contact Info:
- Address: 289 Great Road, Suite 106
Acton, MA 01729 - Website: https://www.fittedcloud.com
- Phone: 978-266-0100
- Email: info@fittedcloud.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CloudCostOptimization
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/@fittedcloud
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrpOc4bp2gWTbLSWf3i51NQ
https://linkedin.com/company/fittedcloud
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