
LightStep comes out of stealth and formally introduces its first product, LightStep [x]PM.
LightStep [x]PM is a performance management solution applying APM's core value proposition -- monitoring and troubleshooting performance issues -- across all components of today's software applications: web and mobile clients, monoliths, microservices, both on premises and in the cloud.
LightStep gives an accurate, detailed snapshot across the entire complex software system at any given point in time, enabling organizations to identify bottlenecks and resolve incidents rapidly.
LightStep [x]PM offers a decentralized architecture that continuously analyzes 100% of transactions across all services, in production. This lets customers measure performance wherever it impacts their business: distinct microservices, key mobile transitions, crucial customer accounts, or individual end-users. When LightStep [x]PM's statistical engine detects an anomaly, it replays and records a detailed end-to-end trace. This trace provides the cross-service context needed to resolve an incident or identify a performance problem.
LightStep [x]PM customers take seconds or minutes to resolve incidents that previously required days of ongoing, multi-team firefighting. The product has led to performance improvements in key end-user experiences for both web and mobile.
There are many ways to integrate with LightStep [x]PM, and customers combine them to gain full coverage of their software systems:
- Native integration with OpenTracing, a CNCF member project and open API standard co-created by Ben Sigelman, CEO and co-founder of LightStep, and others in the OSS tracing community
- Existing centralized logging data from many sources
- Service mesh technologies and load-balancers like Envoy, linkerd, nginx, haproxy and others
"I have seen software development change rapidly in the last decade, and I believe we are entering a new era," said Ben Sigelman, co-founder and CEO at LightStep. "Today, enterprise IT and engineering leaders preside over complex, business-critical software applications that operate at a daunting scale. We built LightStep to deliver products, beginning with LightStep [x]PM, that cut through the complexity of today's production software and keep our customers in control."
Sigelman is an expert in performance analysis and debugging in large software systems. He designed and deployed global-scale monitoring technologies at Google, including Dapper, an always-on distributed tracing system which analyzes more than 2 billion transactions per second.
LightStep also raised $29 million in funding. The Series A round of $7.5 million was led by Redpoint; the Series B round of $20 million was led by Sequoia. Seed investors Cowboy Ventures and Harrison Metal participated in both rounds. LightStep will use the funding to accelerate product development and meet growing market demand.
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