Coradiant

Coradiant was a software developer whose products helped information-technology organizations understand and troubleshoot the performance of web applications. Its technology focused particularly on the end-user experience: rather than looking only at servers, networks, or individual infrastructure components, Coradiant attempted to show how application performance appeared to actual users and where delays or failures originated. The company grew out of Networkshop, a Montreal-based organization founded in 1997 by Alistair Croll and Eric Packman, later joined by Jean-François Dumoulin. Networkshop studied highly available web infrastructure and published research on subjects including load balancing and Secure Sockets Layer performance. It also developed a shared, virtualized front-end infrastructure model for web hosting. The model combined equipment and services from firewall, load-balancing, switching, and cryptography vendors and was deployed in a Montreal data center operated by UUNET. In late 1999, Cary Goldwax and Thanos Moschopoulos joined the business, which was renamed Coradiant. The name was intended to express the idea of organizations working together to operate highly available web infrastructure. Seed funding was provided by Brett Helm, and the company subsequently raised a reported US$20 million Series A round. At the time, the financing was described as the largest Series A financing in Canadian history. Coradiant expanded its infrastructure model into additional data centers and developed a presence in Montreal, Boston, San Francisco, New York, and London. Its headquarters eventually moved from Montreal to Boston, while engineering and product development remained in Montreal. Mike Chuli became chief executive officer in 2001. Coradiant initially offered the OutSmart service, a managed infrastructure and application-management platform deployed in third-party data centers. The decline of the dot-com and application-service-provider markets reduced demand for shared infrastructure, and OutSmart was also limited to customers located in participating facilities. Coradiant responded by making its customer-facing monitoring interface, OutSight, available as a more broadly deployable service. OutSight combined passive observation of HTTP connections, SNMP-based infrastructure checks, and synthetic tests to assess web-application health from several perspectives. The company later shifted toward standalone enterprise software and appliances. Beginning in 2003, Coradiant developed TrueSight, a product intended to measure web performance without requiring customers to use Coradiant-hosted management systems. TrueSight launched in 2004 and received an Interop Best of Show award; a later TrueSight TS-1100 release received the same recognition in 2005. Coradiant expanded the platform with TrueSight BI, a data-warehouse appliance that allowed performance information to be analyzed across dimensions such as servers, users, and pages. It also introduced TrueSight AIM, which used statistical and machine-learning techniques to identify anomalies in web traffic. Coradiant was recognized by Forrester Research in 2007 as a leader in the web-application performance-analysis segment. In 2008, it announced a relationship with Akamai Technologies intended to measure customer experience for applications delivered through Akamai's network. In 2009, Coradiant acquired Symphoniq Corporation, a company developing tools for tracking web transactions from end users. BMC Software acquired Coradiant on April 28, 2011, for reported cash consideration of US$130 million. Following the acquisition, Coradiant ceased operating as an independent company and became part of BMC's broader application-management portfolio.

Coradiant originated in Montreal's web-infrastructure research and services community. In 1997, Alistair Croll and Eric Packman founded Networkshop, a company concerned with the operation of highly available web infrastructures. Jean-François Dumoulin later joined as a co-founder. Networkshop produced research and reports on web-hosting technologies, including load balancing and SSL performance, and experimented with virtualizing the front-end portion of hosting systems. The company's experimental architecture brought together firewalls, load balancers, switches, and cryptographic equipment from multiple vendors. It was installed in a Montreal facility operated by UUNET and connected customer servers within the same data center. This arrangement formed the basis for a shared infrastructure model intended to improve availability and reduce the burden on individual hosting tenants. Cary Goldwax and Thanos Moschopoulos joined in late 1999, and the organization adopted the Coradiant name. The company obtained seed backing from Brett Helm and began raising expansion capital in 2000. Its Series A financing, closed in early 2001, was reported at US$20 million and described at the time as unusually large for a Canadian technology company. Coradiant also moved its Montreal office into larger premises at Windsor Station. Coradiant's first principal service, OutSmart, provided managed access to the company's virtualized infrastructure. Deployments were made in data centers operated by providers including Colo.com, Internap, and Sprint. The company established offices in Boston, San Francisco, New York, and London, while maintaining important engineering and product-development operations in Montreal. Its headquarters moved to Boston, and Mike Chuli joined as chief executive in mid-2001. The collapse of much of the dot-com and application-service-provider market weakened the commercial case for shared infrastructure. OutSmart was difficult to sell outside the facilities in which Coradiant had installed its technology. Coradiant therefore adapted the customer-facing management layer, OutSight, into a more broadly available monitoring offering. OutSight combined passive HTTP observation, SNMP queries against infrastructure devices, and synthetic tests to provide a composite view of web-application health. The company continued offering OutSight through the early 2000s while reducing its involvement in the broader application-management-service business. In 2003, Coradiant began concentrating development on TrueSight, a standalone product designed to appeal to enterprises that wanted to retain control of performance data and did not want to depend on Coradiant-hosted systems. TrueSight was introduced at Interop in 2004 and won a Best of Show award. The subsequent TrueSight TS-1100 appliance received another Best of Show award in 2005. Coradiant later added TrueSight BI, a data-warehouse appliance for examining performance data by server, user, page, and other dimensions. TrueSight AIM extended the portfolio with statistical and machine-learning methods for detecting and diagnosing abnormal traffic behavior. The company continued to focus on end-user experience and application performance. Forrester Research's 2007 Wave assessment placed Coradiant among leaders in the web-application performance-analysis subsegment. In 2008, Coradiant announced a partnership with Akamai Technologies for measuring the experience of users accessing applications through Akamai's delivery network. In 2009, it acquired Symphoniq Corporation, whose technology tracked web transactions from end users. BMC Software acquired Coradiant on April 28, 2011, for cash consideration reported at US$130 million. The acquisition brought Coradiant's application-performance and end-user-monitoring technology into BMC's software portfolio and marked the end of Coradiant as an independent company.

• 2011

  BMC Software acquisition

  [1]Coradianten.wikipedia.org

  BMC Software acquires Coradiant in an all-cash transaction reported at US$130 million.

• 2009

  Symphoniq is acquired

  [1]Coradianten.wikipedia.org

  Coradiant acquires Symphoniq Corporation and adds end-user web-transaction tracking capabilities.

• 2008

  Akamai partnership announced

  [1]Coradianten.wikipedia.org

  Coradiant announces work with Akamai Technologies to measure customer experience for applications delivered through Akamai's network.

• 2007

  Forrester identifies Coradiant as a segment leader

  [1]Coradianten.wikipedia.org

  A Forrester Research Wave assessment rates Coradiant as a leader in web-application performance analysis.

• 2005

  TrueSight TS-1100 receives recognition

  [1]Coradianten.wikipedia.org

  The TrueSight TS-1100 successor receives an Interop Best of Show award.

• 2004

  TrueSight launches

  [1]Coradianten.wikipedia.org

  Coradiant launches the standalone TrueSight web-performance product at Interop, where it receives a Best of Show award.

• 2002

  OutSight becomes a broader monitoring offering

  [1]Coradianten.wikipedia.org

  Coradiant makes its OutSight customer-facing monitoring interface available to customers beyond data centers hosting its shared infrastructure.

• 2001

  Series A financing and headquarters expansion

  [1]Coradianten.wikipedia.org

  Coradiant closes a reported US$20 million Series A financing, moves its Montreal office to Windsor Station, and shifts headquarters to Boston while retaining engineering operations in Montreal.

• 1999

  Networkshop becomes Coradiant

  [1]Coradianten.wikipedia.org

  Cary Goldwax and Thanos Moschopoulos join the company, which adopts the Coradiant name and begins developing a broader commercial infrastructure model.

• 1997

  Networkshop is founded

  [1]Coradianten.wikipedia.org

  Alistair Croll and Eric Packman establish Networkshop in Montreal to work on highly available web infrastructure and related research.

Coradiant positioned itself around end-user experience monitoring and web-application performance analysis. Its products were designed to correlate user-visible delays and failures with underlying application, server, network, and infrastructure conditions, giving enterprise IT teams tools for diagnosis rather than relying solely on conventional network or system monitoring.

• Managed web infrastructure

  OutSmart

  OutSmart was Coradiant's original managed infrastructure service. It used virtualized front-end infrastructure deployed in participating data centers to support highly available web hosting and application delivery. The offering combined resources such as load balancers, firewalls, switches, and cryptographic equipment, but its addressable market was constrained because customers generally needed to be located in a facility where Coradiant had deployed the shared platform.

• Web application monitoring · 2002

  OutSight

  OutSight was a monitoring service and management interface that assessed application health from multiple viewpoints. It passively observed HTTP connections to represent the end-user perspective, used SNMP requests to inspect infrastructure components, and performed synthetic tests. Coradiant later made it available beyond customers hosted in its own shared infrastructure and sold it as a standalone offering during the early 2000s.

• End-user experience monitoring · 2004

  TrueSight

  TrueSight was Coradiant's standalone platform for measuring web-application performance from the perspective of real users. It was developed to address the limitations of hosted monitoring and to appeal to enterprise customers, including organizations with security or data-control concerns. The platform helped correlate performance problems with pages, servers, users, and other operational dimensions.

• Performance monitoring appliance · 2005

  TrueSight TS-1100

  The TrueSight TS-1100 was a successor in Coradiant's appliance-based TrueSight line. It was intended to provide organizations with a dedicated system for collecting and analyzing web-performance information and was recognized with an Interop Best of Show award in 2005.

• Performance data warehouse

  TrueSight BI

  TrueSight BI was a data-warehouse appliance that extended Coradiant's monitoring products with deeper historical and dimensional analysis. It allowed users to examine end-user performance information across categories such as servers, users, and pages, supporting operational investigation and reporting.

• Anomaly detection · 2008

  TrueSight AIM

  TrueSight AIM applied statistical and machine-learning techniques to web-traffic data. Its purpose was to identify unusual behavior and assist with diagnosing performance anomalies, extending Coradiant's focus from passive measurement toward automated analysis of application experience.

• 2011

  Sale to BMC SoftwareM&A

  Background

  Coradiant had built a portfolio around end-user experience monitoring, application performance analysis, and web-transaction visibility.

  Action taken

  BMC Software acquired Coradiant on April 28, 2011, in an all-cash transaction.

  Aftermath

  Coradiant ceased operating as an independent company and its technology was incorporated into BMC Software's application-management activities.

  Total cash consideration. US$130 million (April 28, 2011 acquisition)

  Source

• 2008

  Expansion into network-delivered application experience measurementStrategy

  Background

  Applications were increasingly delivered through distributed application-delivery networks, creating demand for experience measurement beyond the customer's own infrastructure.

  Action taken

  Coradiant announced a partnership with Akamai Technologies to measure customer experience for users of Akamai's application delivery network.

  Aftermath

  The initiative extended Coradiant's monitoring proposition to externally delivered applications and distributed delivery environments.

  Source

• 2003

  Development of a standalone TrueSight productStrategy

  Background

  OutSight had been commercially useful but remained tied to Coradiant-hosted management systems, which made it less suitable for enterprises and security-sensitive buyers.

  Action taken

  Coradiant assigned a core development team to create TrueSight as a standalone system for measuring web performance.

  Aftermath

  TrueSight launched at Interop in 2004 and became the foundation for later appliances, data-warehouse capabilities, and anomaly-detection tools.

  Source

• 2002

  Shift from shared infrastructure toward portable monitoringStrategy

  Background

  The weakening of the dot-com and application-service-provider markets reduced demand for Coradiant's shared infrastructure model. OutSmart was also difficult to sell to customers outside participating data centers.

  Action taken

  Coradiant broadened the availability of its OutSight monitoring interface and reduced its emphasis on the hosted application-management business.

  Aftermath

  The company moved toward standalone enterprise monitoring products, culminating in the TrueSight platform.

  Source

1. 1Coradianten.wikipedia.org