Cameron Haight

At the recent VMworld, VMware CEO Paul Maritz talked about newer application platforms such as Rails (RoR) as being important to the development of cloud computing services.  Usually we have to wait many years though before we begin to see the market responding with management tools to support these newer architectures.  That may not be true with Rails based upon a discussion that I recently had with the folks at New Relic.  They’re focused on providing manageability for Rails-based applications … and doing so using a SAS-based model.  The people involved in this venture are the reason for the title of this posting as many of them are ex-Wily Technology including the founder of Wily as well as of this company, Lew Cirne.  It’s too early to tell if they’ll be as successful (and influential) as Wily turned out to be in the Java management space, but for a company that just launched they appear to be moving fast.  Below are some snapshots of the New Relic RPM interface.

New Relic does not have the space to themselves, though.  There is another company also focusing on Rails-based management – FiveRuns, and like New Relic, they have some former management industry veterans leading them as well.  If Rails continues to be a desirable environment for web application development, we should expect others to jump in and test the opportunity.  It will be an interesting space to continue to analyze!