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A trio of swarm manufacture loss leader have launched a new troupe with the commission of modernizing software configuration information management .
emerge from stealth today with $ 4 million in funding , ConfigHubis the handiwork of CEOAlexis Richardson , founder of cloud - nativecontainer direction weapons platform Weaveworks ; CTOBrian Grant , former Google software engineer and original lead architect of Kubernetes ; and CPOJesper Joergensen , who head in various product purpose at Salesforce ( includingHeroku ) before joining Twilio to leave its voice , video , and platform team .
Richardson say TechCrunch that their Modern party is setting out to “ get citizenry out of config hell . ”
If this just made you blurt out , “ Huh ? ” allow us explain . In July last twelvemonth , CrowdStrike issueda wrong configuration updateto its Falcon Sensor security package , causingwidespread havocandmore than $ 5 billionin losses for Fortune 500 companies . Delta Airlines said itlost $ 500 millionas a issue of flight disruptions , kickstarting what will bea protracted legal battle to recoup its expiration .
That outcome present that software is now vital base , held together with a web of interdependent components link by APIs to create potent system and applications . However , if any part of that web becomes compromise , deliberately or otherwise , it can bring down not just the whole mansion , but also the integral town .
This brings us to configuration datum , which ensures all these disparate section play nicely with each other and that the software program and organisation understand how they ’re guess to behave . But these configuration files can be an unmanageable mess , and ConfigHub is coif out to handle just that .
“ The problem is that conformation data is scattered all over the property — it ’s become a total sprawl , ” Richardson said .
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Fixing DevOps
Much has changed in the means software is deploy and deal over the past 30 year . In the day of yore , endeavor computer software was most likely deploy via atomic number 48 - ROM on localized hardware and configuration was limit to a few text files that instructed the operating system or app where to determine the things they needed to run properly .
Today , it ’s not quite so straight . giant configuration file cabinet with G of line of code are required to make the computer software run in what are often dynamical , large - scale environments .
Joergensen says he learn a valuable deterrent example at Heroku ( aSalesforce - own platform as a armed service ): Code and configuration data are not the same and require very different approach . Configuration data specify system scene and behaviors that ca n’t be debug in the same means as package code can . But understanding this data point — whether with cock like Terraform or Kubernetes — is vital for deflect costly misconfigurations that can cause outage or delays .
“ We have made great procession on evolve collaborative cod practices with tools like GitHub , ” Joergensen said . “ But the shape of live infrastructure needs a dissimilar approach . It is not just a clustering of filing cabinet . Our destination is to bring the graceful app developer experience , pioneered by Heroku , to every kind of alive output operation . ”
As such , ConfigHub assure to “ unify configuration direction with modern , automated growing workflows and compliance . ” or else of let to go hunt for the proper piece of configuration that corresponds to a given error , on ConfigHub , everything will be held in a undivided database , take a shit configs easygoing to find , instinct with a live view that shows what the system is in reality doing .
“ So if your customer ca n’t get at the organisation , you should be able-bodied to see and experience what they are seeing and experiencing , ” Richardson added . “ The configuration information in our system will be an expression of the live product organization , which allows the team not only to key the data point , but also to change it , so that they can sterilize the customer ’s trouble at once . ”
The merchandise , which will be served via a SaaS simulation , will focus initially on Kubernetes DevOps tooling such asHelm , Argo , Flux , Terraform , and its open seed forkOpenTofu . Richardson say that ConfigHub is already working with some “ intermediate to large ” enterprisingness design partners , though he did not reveal name .
The product is still some months from formal launching , so today ’s announcement is more about ConfigHub introducing itself to the man and announce its $ 4 million investment . The financial backing come from some illustrious VC and angel investors , include Crane Venture Partners , Encoded Ventures , Pear VC , andPoolside CEO Jason Warner .
The AI factor
While the CrowdStrike episode was one of the most costly form clangers in recent sentence , it was n’t an isolated incident by any stint .
“ conformation alteration have , for a long time , been known as the leading movement of cloud system failure , ” Grant told TechCrunch .
Last year , for exemplar , Australian superannuation fundUniSuper was hit with an outagethat leave some half - million members without access code to their write up , after a Googlemisconfigurationled to UniSuper ’s Google Cloud VMware Engine ( GCVE ) private cloud being deleted .
And back in January , a configuration erroron GitHub ’s cloud meant all Git operations were unavailable for up to two hour .
The job is going to worsen — AI will compound matters at a time when companies are racing to embed AI into the fabric of their software .
“ AI completely upend how the entire humanity writes , pee-pee , and operates software altogether , not just code writing , ” Warner said in a statement . “ The next few years are much more than just vibing about small changes to greenfield code bases . Enterprises involve ripe solution to hard problems . ConfigHub is a missing piece to permit this rewrite to take place safely . ”
Companies can , of course , already build their own solutions from a confection of putz such as Terraform , Kubernetes , Prometheus , and others . But these can be overly complex to gear up up and manage .
There are big - name officeholder , too , such as ServiceNow and Atlassian that proffer service to call configuration issues . But such company were founded more than 20 year ago , before cloud computing had really taken off . Moreover , many such companies have long expound into the realms of HR , CRMs , team quislingism , and project direction .
“ Those kinds of tools are not well - suited to the modern stack of dynamical , cloud - native , AI - powered , containerized applications , ” Richardson added . “ You ca n’t have somebody trying to roll out AI if a simple misconfiguration think of that the AI will see their company information and publish it on the cyberspace . ”
Three’s a cloud
Prior to ConfigHub , Richardson found an enterprise - focused swarm message fellowship calledRabbitMQ , which was acquired by VMware subsidiary SpringSourcein 2010 . Then in 2014,he establish Weaveworks , which went on to raise more than $ 60 million in backing from a who ’s who of investors , include Accel , Amazon Web Services , and Google Ventures . At Weaveworks , Richardson also develop theGitOpsframework , which is now widely used in cloud - native and Kubernetes environments for wangle infrastructure and software deployment .
Weaveworks formallyshut workshop last February , the outcome of “ lumpy ” sales and deficiency of fresh uppercase , Richardsonwroteat the time . So in mid-2024 , he team up up with Grant and Joergensen to set out ConfigHub .
Grant and Richardson met through their work at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation ( CNCF ) , which count Kubernetesas its initiative projectafter Google donated it in 2015 . Around 2020 , Grant set out giving up his various leadership part around the Kubernetes project , and over time , he developed an idea for a new business whose focus probably would n’t adjust with Google ’s priorities . Thiswouldeventually align , though , with Weaveworks coming to an untimely closing last class .
make the jumping from one of the satellite ’s biggest technology companionship to the world of startups seems like a immense transition . However , Grant lick at two startup before Google — for one , he was primary architect at a small inauguration called PeakStream , whichGoogle acquire in 2007 .
“ I was the third engineer there — when we start , we did n’t even have a name , we did n’t have an bureau , we did n’t have a job plan , ” Grant said . “ So I have done very early startups before . ”
While Google continue to arise exponentially in his 17 eld at the party , Grant ’s interest with Kubernetes , whichGoogle open sourced in 2014 , was also a little cognate to working in a startup .
“ Kubernetes start as just four engineers and a ware managing director ; we did n’t even have a handler in common ; all of us reported to different hoi polloi , ” Grant continued . “ It was very much like a inauguration in its own right hand . ”
Richardson , meanwhile , fulfil Joergensen around the time VMware acquired RabbitMQ more than 10 years ago . After dish out in various fourth-year roles at some of the world ’s biggest tech companies , Joergensen , too , has now elected to tread into the world of startups .
“ you could get so much more done now than ever before — we ’re jumping right into the rip current of AI , and I in all likelihood would n’t want to be any other space right now , ” Joergensen said . “ In a startup , we get to really see with clarity what can be done . ”
