SolarWinds, a company infamous for being targeted by Russian intelligence hackers, has taken a significant step towards enhancing its operational efficiency by acquiring an incident response automation vendor called Squadcast. This acquisition, led by a former Freshworks consultant, aims to improve the detection, diagnosis, and resolution of issues in a more efficient manner.
The purchase of San Francisco-based Squadcast by the Austin, Texas-based observability and IT management software giant is set to revolutionize the way enterprises handle incidents. SolarWinds believes that this new integration will not only enhance operational response but also improve mean time to resolution, providing IT, DevOps, and engineering teams with a more robust approach to incident management. By cutting through alert noise, automating response workflows, and gaining insights on service health, organizations can expect a more streamlined and effective incident resolution process.
According to Squadcast, the traditional approach of investing heavily in monitoring and visibility often falls short when it comes to operationalizing the data and turning insights into real-time, automated response mechanisms. This collaboration between SolarWinds and Squadcast aims to bridge the gap between observability and incident response, creating a seamless workflow from detection to resolution, ultimately improving the reliability of IT systems.
The incident involving the infiltration of the SolarWinds corporate network by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service in 2019, which led to the insertion of malicious code into software updates for the Orion platform, remains a crucial backdrop to this development. Despite ongoing legal challenges, SolarWinds is moving forward with initiatives to strengthen its incident management capabilities.
Squadcast, founded in 2018 and boasting a team of 55 employees, received a significant $6 million pre-Series A investment from DNX Ventures in August 2021. The leadership of Amiya Adwitiya, who has a successful track record with Freshworks, Chargebee, and BlackBuck, brings a wealth of experience to the table. SolarWinds executives are optimistic about the benefits that this acquisition will bring but were not available for comment at the time of the announcement.
The marriage of traditional observability tools with incident response mechanisms is seen as a game-changer by SolarWinds. By combining observability with incident response through the Squadcast acquisition, SolarWinds aims to create a more efficient workflow that improves the management of system reliability. The partnership with Squadcast is expected to empower organizations to enhance visibility across on-premises and cloud environments, leverage AI-driven automation for faster incident detection and resolution, and unify monitoring and response processes for increased efficiency.
In a world where siloed tools and lack of collaboration can hinder incident resolution, Squadcast’s live on-call management features and automated workflows promise to make incident response more structured and efficient. Collaboration between IT, DevOps, and engineering teams is essential for effective incident management, and Squadcast’s platform is designed to facilitate this seamless collaboration.
Customers can expect to benefit significantly from SolarWinds’ acquisition of Squadcast. The incident response platform offered by Squadcast has already proven to help organizations boost operational resilience by reducing alert noise, automating workflows, and saving time and costs. With AI-powered alert prioritization and automation, IT teams can focus on critical alerts, filter out unnecessary noise, and resolve incidents faster, ultimately enhancing system reliability.
The integration of Squadcast with SolarWinds products will lead to enhanced monitoring, AI-powered insights, and automation capabilities in the future. Users can look forward to deeper integrations that will further streamline their incident management processes. SolarWinds and Squadcast have assured users that there will be no immediate changes to pricing, subscriptions, or service functionality, and existing integrations with AWS, Azure, Slack, and Microsoft Teams will continue to be supported.
As SolarWinds continues to navigate the aftermath of the Russian cyberattack, this strategic acquisition of Squadcast signals a new era of operational resilience for the company. By aligning with Squadcast’s expertise in incident response and automation, SolarWinds is positioning itself to deliver intelligent, reliable, and scalable incident management solutions to engineering teams. This partnership is expected to drive innovation and excellence in incident management in an ever-evolving digital landscape.