Qlusters

About Qlusters

Qlusters, Inc. operated in the enterprise systems management software market, focusing on data center optimization. Founded in 2001 by Ofer Shoshan, the company was established in Netanya, Israel, with additional offices in Palo Alto, California, and New York. Qlusters aimed to provide solutions for managing and provisioning both physical and virtual server environments, with a particular emphasis on enterprise Linux applications.

The company's core product was ClusterFrame, a software designed for policy-based management to enhance resource utilization, ensure high availability, and provide scalability for applications within a data center. In a significant strategic shift, Qlusters embraced an open-source model. It introduced its commercial software, Qlusters Resource Manager (QRM), in 2003 and later launched an open-source version, openQRM, in January 2006. This move was intended to build a community and encourage third-party developers to create plug-ins for integration with other systems-management tools, such as VMware. The business model revolved around offering paid subscription support for the open-source software, which included patches and updates, and a planned premium subscription, Enterprise QRM, that would feature proprietary add-ons.

Qlusters secured significant venture capital to fund its operations and expansion. The company raised a total of at least $26.4 million over several funding rounds. Notable rounds included a $16 million Series B on April 7, 2004, and a $10.4 million Series C round on July 31, 2007. Its investor base was composed of prominent venture capital firms, including Benchmark Capital, Israel Seed Partners, Charles River Ventures (CRV), and Duff Ackerman & Goodrich. By mid-2007, downloads for its openQRM software had surpassed 100,000, indicating considerable market interest. Despite its initial traction and substantial funding, the company eventually ceased operations and is now considered deadpooled.