Placing a bet that the profusion of cloud computing platforms has created a new kind of problem as well as an opportunity, startup Avni, Inc. has introduced Software Defined Cloud (SDC) 2.0, a sort of cloud-of-clouds technology that it says makes it easy for customers to move applications quickly and flexibly between public and private infrastructure-as-a-service platforms.

Founded by patent-laden alums of Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper Networks, Inc., Avni says it has succeeded in cutting the deployment time of existing multi-tier applications to the cloud from weeks to minutes, and made it possible for customers to move applications from one cloud to another without retooling.  The result is an end to vendor lock-in and lower costs, since customers can seamlessly move between cloud providers in search of a better deal.

“We are promising ROI in three months,” said CEO Rohini Kasturi, who acknowledged that a promise is not the same as a guarantee. Nevertheless, the company said its typical $25,000 setup fee is quickly offset by savings in deployment and operational costs, with the biggest savings accruing to customers with multiple applications and cloud platforms. The company said it already has multiple customers in production for its service, which is available immediately.

Deployment involves creating a “blueprint” for the target application by dragging and dropping policies covering factors like security, load balancing, scalability and storage requirements on a template. Avni uses test applications and software-defined network services to determine scalability and creates automatic quality-of-service requirements via its own predictive analytics. Users can then deploy to whatever cloud platform they choose – including private clouds – in minutes. Because Avni doesn’t modify the application itself, the risk of platform lock-in is negated, the company said.

The platform “minimizes and eliminates complexities that once delayed deployment:  for example, provisioning N-tier applications, collecting metrics from application and network services and using that information to ensure application service level agreements and availability based on policy,” the company said in a press release.

Multi-cloud flexibility has benefits beyond cost savings. For example, customers can “cloud burst” to additional platforms without going through long set-up procedures. SDC 2.0 supports all major public cloud platforms and can easily be extended to additional public and private clouds as customers request them, the company said.

Avni’s angel investors include Bill Coleman, a partner at Alsop Louie Partners, and Cisco veteran Dan Scheinman.

“There’s clearly a strong value proposition for what Avni is allegedly focused on, which is why there seems to be some genuine buzz around this team and company,” wrote Zeus Kerravala in an early profile of Avni in Network World. “Now all they have to do is execute.”