Dear reader, are your critical business applications slowing to a crawl during peak usage? Does overprovisioning resources as a hedge against poor performance wreck your IT budget? An innovative company called Turbonomic feels your pain – and they’ve built an impressive solution.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore Turbonomic’s founding, groundbreaking technology, and strategic acquisition by technology giant IBM. Read on to learn how intelligent workload optimization can save your organization time, money, and headaches.
An Application Performance Game-Changer Emerges
Founded in 2009 by a team of virtualization experts, Turbonomic developed patented software that revolutionizes how applications utilize resources. By harnessing automation, analytics, and AI, their platform dynamically adapts to assure peak application performance while maximizing efficiency. No more overprovisioning or complaints about slow systems!
Turbonomic rapidly gained traction for its unique approach. From 2010 to 2020, the company grew revenue a whopping 26 consecutive quarters. Then in April 2021, IBM purchased Turbonomic for $1.5B to $2B – one of their largest acquisitions ever – to drive their hybrid cloud ambitions.
This deal puts Turbonomic’s award-winning technology in front of even more enterprises hungry for innovation. Let’s analyze how these two technology leaders came together and what’s next.
Meet the Experts Behind Turbonomic
Turbonomic’s founding team consists of five virtualization pioneers who saw an opportunity to transform resource management:
- Shmuel Kliger: Previously founded storage network optimization leader Akorri Networks
- Yuri Rabover: Veteran engineer from Akorri Networks and inventor of key patents
- Shai Benjamin: Director of Engineering at Akorri Networks
- Yechiam Yemini: Professor at Columbia University, "father of distributed computing"
- Danilo Florissi: Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Chicago
This elite group knew that as data center infrastructure evolved, resource allocation required smarter automation. They built Turbonomic on a now-patented platform that employs advanced analytics and AI to dynamically assure application performance.
Let’s explore how it works under the hood.
Intelligently Automating Application Resources
Turbonomic’s magic comes from its Economic Scheduling Engine. Here‘s a high-level overview:
First, Turbonomic integrates with the full application stack via 500+ APIs – on-prem, cloud, containers, and more. After collecting real-time usage metrics, machine learning algorithms establish the precise relationships between application demand and infrastructure supply.
Finally, the engine initiates automatic adjustment of resources – in real-time – to maintain equilibrium. If application response time drops below targets, it provisions more power. When utilization falls, resources scale back down to optimize efficiency. By repeating this process continuously, it keeps application response times consistent despite volatile demand.
The platform drives a range of capabilities:
- Sustainable IT: Assures performance at lowest cost
- Cloud Optimization: Maximizes cloud investments
- Automation: Streamlines deploying and scaling distributed apps
- Kubernetes Optimization: Boosts container utilization
Simply put – Turbonomic is an automation turbocharger for application resources!
Soaring Market Success
Turbonomic’s technology leadership propelled outstanding commercial results:
- Grew revenue at 26% CAGR from 2010-2020
- Served 30% of Fortune 500 companies by 2015
- Added 1,200 employees by 2021
- Maintained $100M+ revenue run rate since 2018
||2010|2015|2021|CAGR|
|-|:-:|:-:|:-:|-:|
|Employees|100|500|1,200|27%|
|Revenue|$10M|$50M|$100M+|26%|
|Fortune 500 Customers|10%|30%|50%+|17%|
Turbonomic also racked up impressive industry recognition:
- Cool Vendor in Cloud Management, Gartner 2011
- Visionary in Magic Quadrant for Data Center Automation, Gartner 2013
- America’s Most Promising Company, Forbes 2015
Buoyed by extreme growth and visionary technology, Turbonomic was set to transform even more businesses before a surprise opportunity accelerated expansion plans.
IBM Bets Big on Hybrid Cloud and AI
In April 2021, IBM announced the acquisition of Turbonomic in a deal valued around $2B. This represented a strategic move to enhance automation capabilities as enterprises adopt hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence.
IBM was intent on advancing their Cloud Paks – packages to rapidly deploy cloud-native applications. Integrating Turbonomic extends intelligent optimization across the entire IT infrastructure – not just select layers like applications or storage.
According to CEO Arvind Krishna:
"Turbonomic is yet another proof point that IBM is executing our playbook for hybrid cloud and AI. This is IBM‘s largest acquisition since RedHat, and shows our commitment to making best-of-breed capabilities easily consumable by enterprises everywhere."
Industry analysts praised the complementary strengths:
[Insert quote graphics from analysts on strategic implications]For Turbonomic, IBM brings vast resources, data, global customer reach, and credibility. Together these technology leaders aim to dominate the $28B hybrid cloud management market.
What the Future Holds
Looking ahead, IBM plans deeper integration between Turbonomic, Instana, Cloud Paks, and their AIOps software. Joint products will optimize application performance while streamlining IT operations leveraging automation and artificial intelligence.
Both companies also outlined a bold vision for new capabilities:
- Expanding automation across on-prem, multi-cloud, containers, and edge resources
- Incorporating 5G and IoT data flows into optimization decisions
- Applying economic scheduling engine to business metrics like revenue and margin
- Adding ecosystem support for ServiceNow, Terraform, and popular DevOps tools
Simply said, this power couple aims to conquer IT intelligence – driving insights and automation from bytes to boardroom!
So in the quest for optimized and efficient IT, look no further than Turbonomic + IBM. Together these leaders stand ready to assure your applications always perform, no matter what the future holds.
Still hungry for more details? Contact Turbonomic at [email protected] or visit www.turbonomic.com to evaluate their technology.
