10 IT management companies still worth watching

About a year ago, Network World shined its spotlight on 10 IT management companies poised to challenge industry veterans. The newcomers took on network, systems, applications, security and more.

Here’s a brief look at what these companies have done for you lately.

CiRBA

Why it made the list: CiRBA's DCI (Data Center Intelligence) software detects detailed configurations, changes and differences across heterogeneous environments, helping customers with data-center consolidation and virtual-server planning. "This is going to be something the big guys will want to have as virtualization adoption moves more aggressively into production," says Evelyn Hubbert a senior analyst at Forrester Research.

Highlights from past year: CiRBA recently at VMworld detailed its latest release DCI 4.4, which is fully integrated with VMware. Also IBM Global Technology Services and Unisys Enterprise Solution Services in August separately announced they would standardize all server consolidation and virtualization analysis engagements on DCI.

FiveRuns

Why it made the list: FiveRuns Systems Management is delivered using a software-as-a-service model, which offers small-to-midsize companies short on IT staff the means to bring enterprise-level monitoring in house. "FiveRuns offers some interesting management tools for SMBs," says Rich Ptak, principal and founder of research firm Ptak, Noel and Associates.

Highlights from past year: The company launched its new platform Rails Management Suite in May and has signed some 60 companies as customer to date. Ruby on Rails is an open source Web framework on which FiveRuns built its management platform. The company made available this year two components of the suite, RM-Manage and RM-Install. The latter is a freeware application, which has been downloaded hundreds of times and that helps customers develop, deploy and manage Rails applications.

Kace

Why it made the list: Kace packaged its IT management and provisioning software applications on easy-to-install KBOX appliances targeted for small-to-midsize customers.. The company also received a stamp of approval from former Cisco CIO Peter Solvik, whose venture capital firm Sigma Partners invested in the company's second round of funding. Solvik sits on the board of directors at Kace.

Highlights from past year: The company has more than 300 customers and manages more than 200,000 nodes, and executives say Kace has seen more then 200% revenue growth in the first half of 2007 compared to the same period last year. Kace also signed partnerships with established industry players, such as Apple, Citrix, Gateway, Microsoft, Red Hat, Sun and VMware.

Klir Technologies

Why it made the list: Klir offered customers commercial and freeware (for managing as many as 25 devices) versions of its IT management software, which the company delivered in a software-as-a-service model by partnering with vendors and industry analyst firms to subsidize the cost of its software. Using Web 2.0 technologies, Klir offered customers IT-management software with a unique interface that featured content from partners.