Video: 10 Minute IT Jams - Who is Runecast?

A growing number of IT teams are struggling to keep up with the complexities of modern hybrid cloud environments. This is where companies such as Runecast, an independent software vendor founded in 2014, believe they can help.

Runecast specialises in IT virtualisation, particularly for hybrid cloud environments spanning platforms like VMware, AWS, and Kubernetes. During a recent interview, Andre Kashminter, Sales Director at Runecast, shed light on the value his company offers organisations wrestling with the management and security of sprawling digital infrastructures.

"We have a pretty cool piece of software that helps customers manage those environments, secure those environments, and then really kind of return a lot of the hours spent doing common tasks back into their day," Kashminter said.

When asked about Runecast's ideal customer, Kashminter pointed out that the company caters to a range of clients, but delivers the greatest value to those operating large VMware environments. He explained, "We've got customers that have small environments but we tend to see the ones that run large environments get a significant amount of value out of our tool."

The reason, he said, is that larger IT environments often face more complexity, with a myriad of hardware vendors and multiple versions of platforms such as ESXi in play. This complexity increases the time and manpower required for day-to-day management, and makes proactive issue detection more difficult.

"Those environments are more complex, more full of different sort of hardware vendors or more levels of ESXi versions, so the sort of more combinations that we see in those larger environments, the more complex they are to manage, which means they're going to take more time and more man-hours from the operations team to stay on top of," Kashminter added.

He went on to reveal that many customers, faced with these challenges, find it hard to keep up. "We see customers proactively stay away from some of the stuff that IT should be doing on a day-to-day basis, just because it is too hard to manage those, and it does take a lot of time … so we sort of set out to address that business challenge with those customers in mind."

Asked what users can expect when using Runecast across their VM environments, Kashminter said the platform is used for a variety of purposes. "We have a lot of customers that purely look at our software from a security compliance perspective," he explained. "Security is obviously a very hot topic in any CIO's agenda these days, so a lot of the value that we see customers driving out there is that we help make their security compliance reporting so much more easier, so much more quickly, and so much less intensive."

He also noted that some Runecast users leverage the tool for daily upkeep. "We have other customers that sort of leverage our technology to stay on top of those complex environments and make sure those environments are not prone to outages," he said. "So actually proactively looking for the issue before it actually becomes something damaging to their environment."

According to Kashminter, Runecast aims to provide a comprehensive solution. "Everything's sort of built into one tool, so we're actually kind of making it like a Swiss army knife for hybrid cloud environments," he explained.

This means customers running workloads in VMware, AWS, and Kubernetes environments can use one piece of technology to improve their security posture and keep up with compliance requirements – while also identifying and resolving IT problems before they escalate. "Customers … can use this piece of technology to stay secure and stay compliant if security auditing is a regular thing for them, as well as stay on top of those issues before they can actually do any damages in those environments," Kashminter said.

The platform also helps organisations boost their return on investment. "We also help customers actually drive more ROI out of their customers by identifying any best practices that they might be up to use currently," he added.

For those interested in learning more, Kashminter pointed out that Runecast offers a free trial and can get businesses up and running quickly. He said, "Anyone can download our software and be up and running with that in about 15 minutes." The company also offers demonstration presentations for potential users facing common business challenges in their IT environments.

In addition to serving customers directly, Runecast operates a channel partner programme designed to deliver attractive benefits for partners. "We run a pretty healthy channel business," Kashminter said. "We provide significantly attractive margins for those partners."

Beyond the financial incentives, partners offering professional services around AWS, VMware, and Kubernetes can uncover new business opportunities through Runecast. "It helps drive more professional services revenue, since it uncovers a lot of those issues that are actually apparent in those environments and maybe the customer isn't aware that those issues actually exist. There are opportunities for remediation services through professional services," he explained.

Ultimately, partners can support their clients more effectively while also expanding their own revenue streams. "Channel partners that provide professional services around AWS, VMware, and Kubernetes can actually use this thing to generate that sort of new line of revenue – and obviously, more importantly, help their customer get a better outcome," Kashminter said.

In closing, Kashminter summarised Runecast's mission as providing clarity and control to those managing ever more complex IT landscapes. "We can actually help out with those common challenges," he said.