Datadog is a monitoring service that brings together metrics and events from servers, databases, applications, tools and services to present a unified view of the infrastructure to help helps software developers and web operators understand and turn their IT data into actionable insights.
These capabilities are provided on a SaaS-based data analytics platform that enables Dev and Ops teams to work collaboratively to avoid downtime, resolve performance problems and ensure that development and deployment cycles finish on time.
CEO and cofounder Olivier Pomel explains how the cloud changed everything, and how Datadog is there to make sure that it all runs smoothly.
Tell us about the service.
Datadog is a monitoring and analytics service for cloud infrastructure at scale. Our customers are Dev and Ops teams that operate large-scale deployments. Companies like Netflix, HP Public Cloud, Zendesk and Spotify use us, for example.
How is it different?
The world of IT infrastructure is undergoing massive change today. Apps that used to be hosted in private data centers are now running in clouds, such as Amazon Web Services, which behave differently. Datadog has been purpose-built to address these differences. Our customers use Datadog to easily manage their cloud-based apps as they scale.
What market are you attacking and how big is it?
Any company that is running cloud applications at scale would benefit from using Datadog. It’s difficult to gauge how big this market, is because the cloud user base has grown explosively in the past few years. One thing is certain: this market will continue to expand rapidly as companies big and small switch to public or private clouds. At this point, everyone is doing it, from startups to Fortune 500 companies. And the pace of change is accelerating.
What is the business model?
We have a SaaS monthly subscription model. Our customers pay us on a monthly (or hourly) basis, based on the number of servers or instances monitored with Datadog. The beauty of the model is that it keeps vendors and customers aligned. Customers only pay for what they use, as long as they keep using it!
According to your data, who is winning the cloud war?
AWS has truly defined and owned the market for the past few years. They are way ahead of the pack, both technically and commercially today, but Microsoft and Google are gearing up to compete with them and our customers are paying close attention to them. From our perspective, the “cloud war” has just begun.
What are the milestones that you plan to achieve within six months?
As a company, we’re growing aggressively, both in terms of customer base and employees… After opening a new office in Boston last year, we’re working hard on doubling the size of the NYC HQ. All engineers and designers who want to work with insane amounts of data in real-time should take a look at our openings on our site.
If you could be put in touch with one investor in the New York community who would it be and why?
We worked with many investors in NY and took investment from the smart folks at IA, RRE, Contour, NYCSeed and RTP, in particular. I’d say anyone with a deeply technical startup in NYC should talk to Murat Bicer and Kirill Sheynkman at RTP…
Why did you launch in New York?
There’s a lot less hype around infrastructure companies in New York than there is in the Bay Area, and that’s precisely what makes it a great place to launch a disruptive product users actually want: we’re outside of the startup echo chamber and closer to our customers, and it makes it much easier to focus on what actually matters.
What’s your favorite destination in NYC to spin up an instance with Free WiFi?
That’s easy, the Datadog roofdeck, with unimpeachable views over the Empire State and Flatiron buildings 🙂
