{"id":23199,"date":"2022-12-13T21:40:14","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T21:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/13\/alation-partners-with-rafay-systems-to-operationalize-its-data-intelligence-solution-in-kubernetes\/"},"modified":"2022-12-13T21:40:14","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T21:40:14","slug":"alation-partners-with-rafay-systems-to-operationalize-its-data-intelligence-solution-in-kubernetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/13\/alation-partners-with-rafay-systems-to-operationalize-its-data-intelligence-solution-in-kubernetes\/","title":{"rendered":"Alation partners with Rafay Systems to operationalize its data intelligence solution in Kubernetes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With the proliferation of cloud-native orchestration standards, such as Kubernetes and Docker, it\u2019s not enough anymore for enterprises to simply exist in the cloud.<\/p>\n

But, as it turns out, getting into the K8s sandbox is one thing and operationalizing it fully is another, more intricate endeavor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe business we\u2019re in<\/span>\u00a0is to help companies who adopt Kubernetes<\/span>\u00a0as an orchestration platform do it easier, faster,\u201d said Haseeb Budhani<\/a> (pictured, left), co-founder and chief executive officer of Rafay Systems Inc.<\/span>\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s a simple story, right?<\/span>\u00a0Everybody is using Kubernetes,<\/span>\u00a0but it turns out that Kubernetes<\/span>\u00a0is actually not that easy to operationalize. P<\/span>laying in a sandbox is one thing, but o<\/span>perationalizing this at a certain level of scale<\/span>\u00a0is not easy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The DevOps efficiency, multicloud workload deployment, scalability and automation benefits of containerization particularly extend to managed service providers, such as data intelligence solutions provider Alation Inc., which has made Rafay Systems its partner in a burgeoning cloud-native journey.<\/p>\n

Budhani and Anant Verma<\/a> (pictured, right), vice president of engineering at Alation, spoke with theCUBE industry analyst John Walls<\/a> at the AWS re:Invent 2022 Global Startup Program<\/a>, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media\u2019s livestreaming studio. They discussed some of the challenges enterprises face as they move from single tenancy to multi-tenancy within Kubernetes. (* Disclosure below.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Factoring in the customer\u2019s customers<\/h3>\n

As both companies have grown together through their partnership, one prominent challenge, from Rafay Systems\u2019 point of view, has been safeguarding a consistent end-user experience of Alation\u2019s complex product for its end users, according to Budhani.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to a company like Alation,<\/span>\u00a0it\u2019s a more complicated problem set<\/span>\u00a0because they\u2019re taking a very complex application,<\/span>\u00a0their application, but then they\u2019re providing<\/span>\u00a0that as a service to their customers,\u201d he explained.<\/span>\u00a0\u201cSo then we have a chain of customers we have to make happy.<\/span>\u00a0The company has customers;<\/span>\u00a0we have to make sure that they get a good experience<\/span>\u00a0as they consume this application that happens<\/span>\u00a0to be running on Kubernetes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Building up-to-scale platforms for the sole purpose of operationalizing Kubernetes is a complex and arguably needless exercise. This is especially true when a company such as Rafay Systems, which spent four years doing that grunt work, has a product that abstracts this process away for independent software vendors, Budhani explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur product is the what;<\/span>\u00a0the why is that every enterprise, every ISV<\/span>\u00a0is building a Kubernetes platform in-house,\u201d he said. \u201c<\/span>They shouldn\u2019t need to.<\/span>\u00a0They should be able to consume that as a service.<\/span>\u00a0They consume the<\/span>\u00a0EKS Kubernetes engine as a service,<\/span>\u00a0but the management layer was a gap in the market.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When speed is the game, the winner plays faster<\/h3>\n

The enterprise solutions landscape is prone to sweeping change, with innovation and technological leaps happening in a scale of months. Knowing this, Alation understood that expediency would be key to bettering its product and staying competitive in its industry, according to Verma.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt only took us a couple of months<\/span>\u00a0to figure out if Rafay is the right solution for us,\u201d he explained.<\/span>\u00a0\u201cAnd so we ended up purchasing Rafay in April.<\/span>\u00a0We launched our product based<\/span>\u00a0on Rafay in Kubernetes, in EKS in August, so that\u2019s about four months.\u00a0Right now, we are running about 600 node clusters\u00a0on Rafay that are serving our customers.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Running its software in the cloud has also relieved Alation\u2019s customers of the burden of self-managing the software\u2019s infrastructural and security requirements, as all that is done by the company for them, Verma explained. Thus, Alation is extending the speed benefits to end users and keeping them as competitive as it has become.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince we\u2019re running in the cloud,<\/span>\u00a0[the customers are] really happy about that,<\/span>\u00a0because they don\u2019t need to juggle<\/span>\u00a0with the infrastructure and the software management<\/span>\u00a0and upgrades and things like that since<\/span>\u00a0we do it for them,\u201d Verma added. \u201c<\/span>And that\u2019s the speed for them,<\/span>\u00a0because now they are only interested in solving the problems<\/span>\u00a0with the data that they\u2019re working with.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With Amazon Web Services Inc. incentivizing solutions providers, such as Alation and Rafay Systems, as their individual involvements expand, the end customers are reaping benefits at scale as they migrate more workloads into the AWS ecosystem. Thus, it\u2019s a win-win for all the parties involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur customers love it;<\/span>\u00a0they want us to do more things with AWS,\u201d Verma said.<\/span>\u00a0\u201cAs we were talking about<\/span>\u00a0or thinking about moving into the cloud,<\/span>\u00a0AWS was our number one choice.<\/span>\u00a0And that\u2019s the only cloud that we are in today.<\/span>\u00a0We\u2019re not going to go to any other place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE\u2019s and theCUBE\u2019s coverage of the AWS re:Invent 2022 Global Startup Program<\/a>:<\/p>\n