ServiceNow enhances IT operations offering with Lightstep acquisition

Key Takeaways

ServiceNow has acquired Lightstep, a DevOps observability platform, to enhance its capabilities in application performance monitoring and response.

The integration of Lightstep's real-time metrics and tracing data with ServiceNow's IT workflow solutions will help customers identify software health issues proactively.

Both companies aim to extend the benefits of observability beyond DevOps teams to the entire enterprise, facilitating faster innovation and more efficient software delivery.

ServiceNow has signed an agreement to acquire VC-backed DevOps observability platform, Lightstep. The acquisition, which ServiceNow expects to complete in Q2 2021, will enable the company to help its DevOps engineers build, deploy, run, and monitor the performance of applications. Co-founded in 2015 by Ben Sigelman, CEO, Ben Cronin, COO, and Daniel Spoonhowe, chief architect, Lightstep is an emerging pioneer in next generation application monitoring and the trusted observability solution for born‑in‑the‑cloud companies like GitHub, Spotify and Twilio. Its solution analyses system‑wide metrics and tracing data in real time to understand the cause and effects of changes to application performance, reliability, and development velocity.

Using Lightstep’s capabilities with ServiceNow’s IT workflow solutions, customers will be able to monitor and respond to critical signals and indicators of software health, allowing them to detect problems before they have an impact on large numbers of users.

Pablo Stern, SVP of IT workflow products at ServiceNow, said: “Companies are betting on going digital in order to thrive in the 21st century, but the transition is often challenging to navigate. With Lightstep, ServiceNow will transform how software solutions are delivered to customers. This will ultimately make it easier for customers to innovate quickly. Now they’ll be able to build and operate their software faster than ever before and take the new era of work head on with confidence.” Ben Sigelman, CEO and co‑founder at Lightstep, added: “Today, observability primarily benefits the DevOps teams that build and operate mission‑critical apps. We’ve always believed that the value of observability should extend across the entire enterprise, providing greater clarity and confidence to every team involved in these modern, digital businesses. By joining ServiceNow, together we will realise that vision for our customers and help transform the world of work in the process – and we couldn’t be more excited about it.”