Video: 10 Minute IT Jams - Runecast co-founder on the company's flagship virtualisation tool

The landscape of IT is constantly changing. But since its debut in 2015, Runecast Analyzer has steadily evolved to help organisations keep pace with the demands of modern infrastructure.

Chid Smokovich, Runecast's co-founder and vice president, reflected on the journey during a recent interview. "Runecast Analyzer is a solution that proactively optimises and secures your hybrid cloud," he said, describing it as a platform that automates vital IT tasks that are traditionally time consuming and manual. "Instead of IT teams going out there and manually fixing security, fine-tuning security, preventing issues, adopting best practices - Runecast Analyzer does that for you."

At its inception, the product was aimed principally at managing VMware environments, but the scope has expanded dramatically. "The product has changed tremendously... we've advanced it beyond recognition," Smokovich said. "We started just with VMware and VMware vSphere... to the point now that we cover multiple platforms, including AWS and Azure."

This ongoing development has been driven by feedback from customers and partners worldwide. "We have continuously and we're still doing so, listened to our customers, prospects and partners," he explained. "They were the ones who are continuously providing feedback as to what they would want to see, what they're expecting in future releases, and we have remained very nimble and agile to deliver those requests."

He cited the example of the German and Australian markets, where partners requested support for local security compliance standards. "We included those compliance standards, and the sales, I mean, the use case and the sales after that, of course, skyrocketed in those regions," Smokovich recalled.

So, who exactly is Runecast Analyzer for? According to Smokovich, its reach extends from the technical frontlines to the boardroom. "It's easy to say both, but it really is the case," he said. Recent internal reviews at the company revealed widespread use by "technical people, system admins and architects and engineers, to all the way to VPs and C-level people."

The pressures facing modern IT teams are formidable. "IT teams are being asked pretty much the impossible," said Smokovich. "They need to keep the lights on, they need to take care of security, they need to run new projects and on top of all that, they're being asked to innovate for the business. And it's a lot to ask."

By automating repetitive and important tasks, Runecast Analyzer is designed to give back time to IT teams. "It automates a good portion of features that makes it easier and obviously frees up time to variety teams to do other more creative, innovative things," Smokovich noted.

There are, however, rare scenarios where Runecast's solution might not fit. Smokovich recalled an early customer who was under a permanent "change freeze" – no changes to their IT environment were allowed. "Unless you are fully on a change freeze and fully cut off from any kind of network... you know, there's a need for Runecast Analyzer to provide all those features that we mentioned."

Partners are core to Runecast's business model. From the start, the company set out to "share our success and base our success on the channel." Smokovich emphasised that a "channel-first" strategy remains vital as the product and company grow.

He outlined three key ways partners benefit from the collaboration: financial margin from reselling software; reaching new customers thanks to Runecast's reputation and capabilities; and new professional services opportunities. "Because Runecast Analyzer reveals issues that can be prevented and opens up security vulnerabilities that can be fixed, it identifies the upgrade paths you need to take. And, of course, it all requires a lot of effort and the partners are there to fill in that gap to offer the end customer extra value, to make sure their environment is running as smoothly as possible," he said.

Looking ahead, Smokovich sees nothing but further evolution for Runecast. "For the first five, six years, the only thing that has been constant is the expansion and the growth that we've had," he said, noting the growth from five founders to a team of over sixty and counting. "It's safe to say that the growth will continue in the next five years."

He identified two key areas for development: the product itself, and Runecast's overall business. "In the product, I see expansion to other platforms. We're going to continue to listen to partners and customers... continuing to support them in their journey."

The company's commitment to partners remains central with ambitions to create "a win-win-win scenario," as Smokovich put it. Explaining, "A partner, the end customer, and of course Runecast is growing and expanding that successful customer and happy customer base."

For Runecast, it seems adaptability, responsiveness and close partnership will continue to shape its future. As Chid Smokovich concluded, "We will be relying on channel partners to share that success with us and to grow with us."