Regardless of who the youthful vendor is targeting, however, the scope for the software is undeniable. These guys can help anyone find where the flaws lie in their server allocation, and then change policies to make the entire infrastructure a slicker, smoother beast.
Potentially, you could significantly cut the number of servers in use, or get rid of excess fat clogging up your IT arteries.
"Cloud has changed the landscape dramatically, it's a lot more flexible, a lot more agile. That means companies have to adapt," said Nik Wekwerth, vice president of marketing and the man who appears to be the face of Librato.
"We provide tools to the guys that are doing operations in this new agile world. You need to observe and act and try to do that as fast as possible."
The charts look pretty too; and let's be honest, we all love a good-looking product. What would you rather have: a cool, smart Marilyn Manson, or a cool, smart Marilyn Monroe?
The pricing might tempt you as well. It's all done on a SaaS model, and on a per-CPU-core-hour basis. This means it's fairly cheap, plus you can back out whenever you want.
Future gazing
We were lucky enough to be told about one incoming Librato product, simply called Metrics. No prizes for guessing what it does it provides visualisation of a company's IT metrics.
It's about looking at a business' real-time cloud-based data, visualising it, analysing it and then taking action.
Elsewhere, the company wants to add greater analytics capabilities, which will take it into greater competition with behemoths such as Oracle and IBM.
It won't be doing any predictive stuff though. "We're about what is happening now," the CEO said in his typically dry tone.
As for strategy, the company doesn't have drastic need for outside investment yet, thanks to its minimal overheads and the cloud model it works on.
Thus far, Librato is by far the coolest start-up we've met on the tour
Librato won't be giving away any of its secret sauce either the firm wants to protect its intellectual property and won't be making its code open source anytime soon, the demure CEO revealed.
No doubt once the firm expands and goes after more markets, it might need a leg up. An acquisition, perhaps? Salesforce.com came to our mind for some reason
Verdict
Thus far, Librato is by far the coolest start-up we've met on the tour. As soon as you enter the company's offices, it practically screams cool at you, from the lack of suits to the kitchen that doubles up as a mini data centre. It just feels exciting, like a start-up should.
Sure, the software is a little limited. But if this company can add functions to make the Silverline and Metrics products more attractive to businesses of all kinds, this start-up will really take off.
It seems only a matter of time until the company targets companies outside of SaaS providers.
"We will have much broader applicability than just IT," van den Bosch added. "We have an opportunity to take it to a wider market."
For those with a cloudy vision, Librato can offer some more clarity in the mist. After all, who would want to fly blind in the clouds?
