The Register is reporting that Azul Systems is having some trouble. The CEO is leaving, they've had some recent layoffs, and now - again, according to the Register - the company is looking to be acquired. Surprising news, considering how capable the hardware is. Azul recently made a "5-50" offer, where they would guarantee performance increase of Java deployments. Considering how Java has found a sweet spot in high-performance deployments, one would think that such a guarantee would have customers beating a path to their door; anyone know what's happening there, or why? Is commodity hardware, then, "good enough" for even high-risk deployments? If so, that's great for Java - even though Your Humble Editor thinks Azul has a lot of promise, and would hate to see the technology buried for any reason. What do you think?

Is commodity hardware, then, "good enough" for even high-risk deployments? If so, that's great for Java - even though Your Humble Editor thinks Azul has a lot of promise, and would hate to see the technology buried for any reason.

What do you think?

I would think that this kind of hardware is only provocative enough for those companies with very high performance needs and where the software cannot be distributed to a cluster or grid. Supporting niche hardware is very costly and that's why we see so much movement to x86 based solutions. We actually support niche hardware where I work and it's very expensive and if we could we'd surely move away from it. And that's a well situated, relatively popular platform. Moving towards non-standard platforms is not something a lot of people are interested in right now.

Is commodity hardware, then, "good enough" for even high-risk deployments? If so, that's great for Java - even though Your Humble Editor thinks Azul has a lot of promise, and would hate to see the technology buried for any reason.

What do you think?

I would think that this kind of hardware is only provocative enough for those companies with very high performance needs and where the software cannot be distributed to a cluster or grid. Supporting niche hardware is very costly and that's why we see so much movement to x86 based solutions. We actually support niche hardware where I work and it's very expensive and if we could we'd surely move away from it. And that's a well situated, relatively popular platform.

Moving towards non-standard platforms is not something a lot of people are interested in right now.

Well, to be fair, Azul isn't necessarily a "non-standard platform." It's just a java device that uses a grid - you get grid capabilities for free, almost, and along the way you lose those handy garbage collection pauses. Plus, the performance benefits are measurable and real, even if there's not a perceived need to go to Azul because there's no other choice.

Well, to be fair, Azul isn't necessarily a "non-standard platform." It's just a java device that uses a grid - you get grid capabilities for free, almost, and along the way you lose those handy garbage collection pauses. Plus, the performance benefits are measurable and real, even if there's not a perceived need to go to Azul because there's no other choice.

Perhaps I misunderstand. Would any unix or windows admin have the knowledge required to setup and administer a Azul system? Is special training required?

Well, to be fair, Azul isn't necessarily a "non-standard platform." It's just a java device that uses a grid - you get grid capabilities for free, almost, and along the way you lose those handy garbage collection pauses. Plus, the performance benefits are measurable and real, even if there's not a perceived need to go to Azul because there's no other choice.

Perhaps I misunderstand. Would any unix or windows admin have the knowledge required to setup and administer a Azul system? Is special training required?

Yeah, I think so - all that's really required is a network hooking the appliance in, and someone smart enough to install the Azul client JVMs.

I know a lot of Azul's customers (large banks and telcos) and they're all very happy with their purchases. Azul have recently released the latest "kick-arse" 768 core box. We ran our Artix Data Services (ex C24-IO) on Azul and seen the most incredible throughput on SWIFT messages. I'll be talking about this at the NYC JUG on the 19th, come along. I don't know enough about their company finances to comment but I know people that have just been hired and I know clients that are actively buying their kit. Is this just another "Ottinger" stir up? -John-

I know a lot of Azul's customers (large banks and telcos) and they're all very happy with their purchases. Azul have recently released the latest "kick-arse" 768 core box. We ran our Artix Data Services (ex C24-IO) on Azul and seen the most incredible throughput on SWIFT messages. I'll be talking about this at the NYC JUG on the 19th, come along.

I don't know enough about their company finances to comment but I know people that have just been hired and I know clients that are actively buying their kit.

Is this just another "Ottinger" stir up?

-John-

John, feel free to read the Register... I saw the layoff information yesterday, but held off because I'm not interested in seeing "stir-up" stuff. Two things in a row, worthy of pointing out - as references. I'm not making up rumors, merely reporting that they exist. If you know better than I - which wouldn't be hard, since JBoss swore up and down they weren't selling out, right before they sold out - feel free to speak up. Thanks for the props.

It's a shame, the boxes are cool. I did some ObjectGrid testing on the older box a couple of months back and it was very interesting testing. The box is an awesome box for doing multi-core tuning. 192 cores at relatively low clock speeds so you can see the impact of various locking strategies on performance and there is no GC to taint things as throughput goes up. The console for the box makes spotting locking issues very easy and we quickly improved performance on it in a couple of days. This works also helped on normal boxes like 32 way p5s ot Sun T1000 type boxes. Cool boxes.

I think it’s pretty normal situation when a VC-funded startup missed on some important milestone in terms of the revenue coming in. Board replaces CEO, cuts the fat from the payroll and things move forward. Personally, I was never a fun of Azul’s technology as I prefer commodity hardware in all cases. I think Azul really failed to gain necessary momentum for the vendor of proprietary custom made hardware. I could be wrong though… My 2 cents, Nikita Ivanov. GridGain - Grid Computing Made Simple

Could this be related to their patent and trade secret fight with Sun? Did they lose? geir

The Register is reporting that Azul Systems is having some trouble. The CEO is leaving, they've had some recent layoffs, and now - again, according to the Register - the company is looking to be acquired. Surprising news, considering how capable the hardware is.

Azul recently made a "5-50" offer, where they would guarantee performance increase of Java deployments. Considering how Java has found a sweet spot in high-performance deployments, one would think that such a guarantee would have customers beating a path to their door; anyone know what's happening there, or why?

Is commodity hardware, then, "good enough" for even high-risk deployments? If so, that's great for Java - even though Your Humble Editor thinks Azul has a lot of promise, and would hate to see the technology buried for any reason.

What do you think?

Could this be related to their patent and trade secret fight with Sun? Did they lose?

geir

They came to an agreement; some stock went to Sun in the end.

So, actually being on the inside of things here at Azul (and having spent part of the day interviewing for field roles here in Europe) I couldn't resist joining in here. Firstly, the official press-released response has now landed... http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070913/aqth117.html?.v=15 Secondly, the official reality of the situation is: The company is not up for sale or actively seeking acquirers. We are very well funded and recently completed a $40 million financing to continue our technology innovation and we are aggressively increasing our investments in go to market activities, partnering and software innovation to continue to outpace the competition with the industry’s only solutions designed from scratch for next generation deployments based on Java, SOA, and Web Services architectures Stephen Dewitt is and remains the CEO of the company Azul has been consistently growing our business since the introduction of Vega 1 systems in summer 2005. Our Vega 2 systems have now been successfully deployed in several dozens of customers’ production environments. We are absolutely aggressively pursuing on our roadmap and committed to introducing compelling new products and technologies for the coming years. We are committed to be visible in the marketplace in the coming months. Look for our participation at: BEA World (this week) at San Francisco Vega 2 7200 Customer event in London next week (9/20) BEAWorld Europe in Barcelona in October Axway Users’ conference in October Gartner Application Architecture conference at Las Vegas in December Dozens of customers are currently evaluating our Vega 2 systems for procurement and are consistently benefiting from 3X to 10X higher application performance at a fraction of cost as compared to legacy systems In order to meet customer demands we are accelerating staffing sales and technical sales functions worldwide. The company recently did decrease staffing in certain areas, including India, as we continuously adjust our operational investments, but in fact we are aggressively hiring in many groups We at Azul Systems, executive staff and employees, are committed to continued success of our customers. Our experienced executive management is committed to sustaining technology and market leadership. 'nuff said?

Funny, but your website mentions nothing about job openings in Europe ...

If you might be interested, please forward a CV! I'm not making this up!

Peter, I'm glad to see this. Thanks for posting it. And folks... to everyone else, I'd like to point out that this is why I mentioned The Register here. I didn't have any proof or statement either way, and I wasn't going to do anything other than offer a chance to respond. I asked if anyone knew what was going on, saying "Your Humble Editor thinks Azul has a lot of promise, and would hate to see the technology buried for any reason."

And folks... to everyone else, I'd like to point out that this is why I mentioned The Register here. I didn't have any proof or statement either way, and I wasn't going to do anything other than offer a chance to respond. I asked if anyone knew what was going on, saying "Your Humble Editor thinks Azul has a lot of promise, and would hate to see the technology buried for any reason."

I think you should stop explaining yourself. I'm not telling you what to do, I just don't think you have any reason to do this. I really don't get why people feel the need to assign motives to your news postings. News is news and I don't seen anything particularly skewed in your postings. It seems to me that your postings are meant to stir up conversation and isn't that the point of this site?

For some banks, layoff is the best cost-reducing measure as economic situation remains unstable. Recently, Citigroup has cited turbulence in the stock market and has increased federal regulations as sources of lost income.The bank has declared that it will eliminate about one percent of its work force globally. That could mean the loss of about 3,000 employees. Citigroup is the biggest bank announcing layoffs this week. Layoffs are being experienced within the U.S. and in other countries as well. It is not the only bank planning job cuts as of now. Others such as Bank of America,Swiss banking giant, Nomura Bank in Japan and BNP Paribas Bank in France will also eliminate a lot of employees. Source: Citigroup could lay off thousands in continued industry turmoil

Actually, in a phone interview, Azul CEO Stephen DeWitt confirmed the layoffs. However he denied the other reports. He just said the company is planning to add more sales people to its now 125-person staff. DeWitt also said one new investor in the company is JVax Investment Group, which has joined with previous investors, like Accel Partners, Austin Ventures, ComVentures, Credit Suisse, Meritech Capital Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Worldview Technology Partners. Thus, I hope the company is not seriously affected by the economic crisis provoked by rising gas prices. Let’s see how the situation will change in future.