Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are growing, and with this growth, they’re changing the way they use technology to run their businesses. However, with their purse strings drawn tight and not having a clear roadmap of IT implementation, SMBs generally invest in IT in a phased manner. The problem manifolds for them as th? present market only offers solutions that are either expensive and bloated or open-source with a great need for fine-tuning and customizing. With limited knowledge of technology and their budgets tight, none of the options seem feasible for SMBs.
This is where a product like Anturis comes in. Promising features at par with enterprise-level IT monitoring softwares, without the exorbitant prices that generally accompany them, Anturis sounds like a pretty solid service that can play a strategic role in businesses of all sizes, helping companies do more with less to realize cost savings and profitability. Plus, it’s in beta and currently free for the first six months of use. What’s not to love?
More on it from Mr. Sergey Nevstruev, CEO, Anturis himself, with whom we recently had an opportunity for a Q&A session.But before that, let’s have a look at this comprehensive demo below for a firsthand look at the benefits of Anturis monitoring solutions.
At Anturis, we intend to fill the gap and build full-featured cloud IT infrastructure monitoring and troubleshooting solution for SMBs: Easy to set up, reliable and affordable.
– Sergey Nevstruev, CEO, Anturis.
Mr. Sergey Nevstruev, CEO, Anturis.
Q: What is your name and role with Anturis?
A: Sergey Nevstruev, CEO.
Q: For those who don’t know what Anturis is, can you please brief it a bit?
A: A vanguard IT solutions company, Anturis Inc. is the developer of IT infrastructure monitoring and troubleshooting solutions for small to medium sized businesses. Anturis, now available in beta, delivers organizations of all kinds a 24×7 comprehensive monitoring and troubleshooting service that is both feature rich and easy to set up and use. Anturis, Inc. was founded by successful IT entrepreneurs Serguei Beloussov, Max Tsypliaev and Ilya Zubarev.
Q: Anturis comes across as a service that provides the best of both worlds. It promises to deliver features at par with enterprise-level IT monitoring software, without the grotesquely high prices that generally accompany them. What was the thought process behind coming up with this initiative? Were SMBs your primary target from the word go?
A: Anturis’ main target is the SMB marketplace. As more and more SMBs come online, their businesses rely on online services. Restaurants allow customers to book reservations online, medical clinics and hair stylists now allow clients to make appointments online as well. As SMBs are more online now than ever before, most don’t have an IT department at all. Servers are hosted and software is installed by a part-time IT administrator. They need enterprise-level solutions that will not only monitor websites, but their entire online service, as well as servers (CPU, processes, HDD free space, etc.) Most cannot afford to spend an exorbitant amount of money on these monitoring services and many do not have a qualified IT professional. Anturis offers the ultimate solution: An affordable, yet extremely compressive service, that does not require the skills of a dedicated IT person.
Q: Anturis is currently in the Beta period and is available for free. What are the features provided in this period? And how has the response been so far?
A: The Anturis beta launch is aimed to kick-start our product and service at an increase rate as well as to build a strong community. It is not something usually referenced as “beta testing” against an artificially selected pool of users with a main purpose to catch bugs. In our case, we are providing full functionality for free, so the Anturis beta features include full-cycle monitoring. These features include:
- Collect: A comprehensive and convenient cloud-based monitoring approach to data collection. Drills down through every layer of infrastructure. Can easily monitor across distributed platforms, data centers or branch offices around the world.
- Analyze: Analyzes collected data prior to alerting you to any potential concerns. Correlates related issues from different parts and layers of the IT infrastructure.
- Alert: Generates meaningful and actionable alerts.
- Report: Gives you the option to view detailed information about specific problems as well as get historical perspective.
- Troubleshoot: Provides the tools to make solving IT problems faster and easier.
As the Anturis beta just recently launched, we are experiencing organic growth and have already received much positive feedback. The overall Anturis beta response to-date mainly confirms the value of an easy-to-set up and use solution for the SMB market.
Q: How long will the beta period last?
A: If users sign up today, they will receive the Anturis beta for free for six months. We have several goals to reach with our beta. This includes building a good base for commercial launch, verification of marketing channels and so on. We plan to achieve this in 3-5 months. After that, we will move to the next commercial stage.
Q: How much will the commercial plans cost after the beta period is over?
A: The price will start from a low 2-digit figure (per month) and will depend on the amount of monitors (measured parameters) needed.Our commercial plan is still in development and we are not ready to provide specific price points at this time. The main goal is to present plans that fit companies with different IT infrastructure sizes and needs. There will be also a free plan once the commercial solution launches.
Q: Anturis sounds like a very promising product; but the competition to support open source technology is pretty intense out there. Nagios, the current industry standard for IT monitoring services, has prices far less compared to enterprise level software and somewhat falls in the same league as yours. How do you plan to stand out?
A: Nagios is a great solution, and IT professionals really enjoy it. However, to use Nagios you have to be a well-qualified IT expert. Both to set it up as well as to use the solution. It also requires installation of many parts. That means that even though the price of the solution is not high (or free) there are associated other costs. Even if you are an expert, you can’t start monitoring in 5 minutes. You definitely can with Anturis.
Q: What value does Anturis offer in the Cloud arena?
A: It’s now obvious that everything moves to the cloud. Hosted IT infrastructure market CAGR is 25%. So why shouldn’t IT infrastructure management tools follow the trend and move to the cloud as well? Cloud technology brings a whole new generation of IT solutions, which are easier in use and much more affordable for smaller businesses. As an example, you may rent a cloud server with just several mouse clicks and it will cost you several dozen dollars per month. No upfront cost. No need for a full team of skilled IT professionals. Legacy IT management/monitoring software solutions (whether commercial, enterprise or open-source) look a bit cumbersome in the new Cloud context. When you can add a new virtual server in one minute you wouldn’t spend ten minutes to configure monitoring for it.
At Anturis, we intend to fill the gap and build full-featured cloud IT infrastructure monitoring and troubleshooting solution for SMBs: Easy to set up, reliable and affordable.
Q: What plans do you have in store for 2013?
A: Today, we start with the Anturis beta mainly in the US. By the end of the year Anturis will go commercial. We also will target additional markets globally (Europe, Russia) and work towards expanding our user base and build our customer levels.
