Tech start-ups that should matter

Scalent Systems

Founded: January 2003

Headquarters: Palo Alto, California.

What it offers: Scalent makes real-time data center management software, called Virtual Operating Environment (V/OE). The software adds a layer of virtualization above the hypervisor, or as the company calls it, a "pre-boot" environment. This enables it to do fancy management tricks such as turn the physical hardware on, instantly move virtual machines between VMware ESX Servers even on different LAN switches, or port applications back to a non-virtualized state directly on to Windows, Linux, Solaris. It also works with AIX, Citrix, Windows and Xen systems.

Why we like it: Scalent targets disaster recovery, high availability and virtual machine management. V/OE lets servers -- even virtual ones -- retain their physical connectivity information to control the hardware and ensure when failovers or moves occur, applications have the right network address, storage access and other essentials. Scalent, profiled in August, has been hot over the past few months, signing on EMC, HP and Unisys as resellers. HP, for example, will resell V/OE to help make its c-Class blade server systems quickly recoverable from operating system or application failures.

How it got its start: The founders noticed the problems caused by manually shifting machines, cables, and network- and storage-access architectures whenever testing, disaster recovery or other changes are made. They named the company for the challenge they set out to solve: scalability.

Management: Benjamin Linder, CEO, was previously with Openwave Systems and Oracle. Andy Laursen, senior vice president of product development, held executive positions at Phone.com and Oracle. Ali Zadeh, former COO of NeoPath Networks (now Cisco) joined as president in October.

Funding: US$37 million in three rounds, from Credit Suisse, Hummer-Winblad, JK&B Capital and Pequot Ventures.

Who uses the product: A sampling includes Ameriquest (now owned by CitiGroup), Blackboard, Carilion Health System and Wachovia.

Interesting fact: Laursen, a co-founder, owns one of the largest private photovoltaic (solar panel) arrays in the western United States.

Sipera Systems

Founded: November 2003

Headquarters: Richardson, Texas

What it offers: Internet Protocol Communications Security (IPCS) appliances, which provide VPN, firewall, intrusion prevention, compliance and troubleshooting functionality for VoIP/unified communications networks and protocols, such as H.323, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Cisco's SCCP, Wi-Fi/dual-mode phones, hosted VoIP and other technologies.

Why we like it: VoIP technology is just as vulnerable to security threats as any other. As enterprises convert PBXs to server-based VoIP systems, and consumers cut their copper plain old telephone service lines for VoIP, protecting traffic will become increasingly important. Sipera uses sophisticated protection techniques such as behavior learning, signature and anomaly filtering, fingerprint verification, protocol scrubbing and rogue media blocking, and does so at throughput of 100M to 2Gbps depending on the device. Plus, the company has earned a strong reputation for its VIPER Lab, active in the VoIP security research community. VIPER researchers have been credited with finding more than 20,000 potential VoIP security threats.