Kaavo Promotes Cloud Application Management to MSPs

Kaavo has been pitching its cloud management software and automation services to SMB customers since the company was founded in 2007. Kavvo specializes in application-centric management and security for cloud computing, allowing customers to deploy and manage applications and workloads in the cloud. Now Kaavo Founder and CEO Jamal Mazhar says managed service providers can also benefit from Kaavo’s automation solutions. Here’s why.

“We’re in the process of signing some MSP clients,” said Mazhar. “They see an immediate need for our services.”

Kaavo provides a so-called “end-to-end cloud solution” — in which companies can manage their business applications in a public, private or hybrid cloud setting. Kaavo’s main product, IMOD, claims to offer one-click application deployment, scheduling and automation, best practice deployment templates and application accounting.

It’s an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) layer over virtualization. The result: MSPs can deploy SaaS (software as a service) and PaaS (platform as a service) atop IMOD. So far Kaavo has several partners in the public and private cloud space, including Amazon, Rackspace, IBM, Cloud.com and Eucalyptus.

Mazhar says Kaavo will leverage its channel partners for international MSP offerings and its online sales team to target other SMB’s looking for a better automation service. An enterprise pitch could also emerge down the road. “The biggest interest is coming from MSP’s themselves,” he said. To address those inquiries Kaavo has introduced a free 30-day trial of  IMOD.

Kaavo sounds promising but MSPmentor views the company’s partner efforts as a work in process. The company’s website doesn’t include much content developed specifically for VARs and MSPs. And the partner section focuses mostly on relationships with big-name companies like IBM. To attract MSPs, Kaavo is going to need some more comprehensive messaging to channel partners.

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