Comparison with other automation tools

It is not our purpose to offer a detailed technical comparison of features on a tool per tool basis. Instead, we highlight four key aspects of our vision and how they differ from existing tools.

Integrated

If you are a software developer and open source enthusiast, you could probably build a ‘comodit like’ solution by assembling tools like libvirt (for creating machines), cobbler (for the provisioning), puppet (for the configuration management) and mcollective (for orchestration). You would still be missing features like the many platform supports, the web based UI, or the enterprise friendly compliance, access control and auditing. Moreover, you would end up having to duplicate information across the various tools and would lack a global view of your infrastructure requirements.

This is why we think that mashing up open source tools is great for some application developers (especially web startups), but does not fit the requirements of your everyday enterprise IT operations. We have built an integrated tool which is simple to deploy and enable you to perform all operations from a single web client minimizing duplications of tasks and knowledge.

Easy

We have been shocked by horror stories of companies deploying expensive IT Automation suites, requiring dozens of modules, and days of configuration by external consultants to end with a broken solution that does not fit their needs. We have also had nightmares using solutions that seemed ‘powerful’ but required a PhD to model the simplest infrastructure.

We are making ComodIT as easy to deploy and to use as possible. This is why we put so much effort in our web client. We believe that you should be able to easily describe an application recipe withou having to be an expert in a new Domain Language, or to become a Ruby on Rails developer. With ComodIT, everything can be done using simple to use and well documented wizards.

Enterprise minded

There are too many automation tools out there having great technical solutions but remain non usable in an enterprise context due to the lack of basic features like identity management, access control, auditing, etc. ComodIT is built since day one with the vision to make enterprise IT a commodity. These key requirements are built in the core of our platform, not patched on top of it.

Open

Too often do you find a great tool, start using it and realize too late that you are now locked in a vendor world. Unable to easily integrate the tool with your own processes, unable to retrieve your data in an open format, unable to migrate your hosts to other vendor technologies.

Everything in ComodIT is designed to be open. Our web client is built using the same API as the one you have access to. Your data is available in a simple to parse, and well documented, JSON format, enabling you to retrieve it and process it as you wish. Our platform can be easily extended through custom drivers. Finally, our support of unattended installation makes it straightforward to redeploy your hosts from one vendor to the other.