Sauce Labs extends error monitoring into production with acquisition of Backtrace

Sauce Labs Inc., a provider of continuous testing solutions, today announced the acquisition of error monitoring startup Backtrace I/O Inc. to extend its platform’s monitoring capabilities into production environments.

Backtrace allows development teams to quickly identify and fix bugs across all environments by automating responses to user-affecting errors. It does this by processing errors, including panics, core dumps and minidumps, during runtime and generates searchable error reports from the data.

Sauce Labs intends to use it as an addition to its already existing continuous testing platform to provide greater visibility through all stages of software development – including code that has been released into production.

“As organizations evolve their testing strategies to meet the high standards of quality required at speed in modern software delivery, error monitoring has become a must-have capability,” said Aled Miles, president and chief executive of Sauce Labs.

The addition of Backtrace combines with a series of other recent acquisitions by Sauce Labs including interface monitoring tool API Fortress Inc., scriptless test automation solution AutonomIQ Inc. and mobile testing platform TestFairy Ltd.

Backtrace’s platform provides a broad view of applications with error monitoring that allows DevOps teams to reduce debugging time and improve software quality. That’s especially useful for companies that need to reduce the amount of downtime that affects users when fixing bugs, such as developers in the gaming, mobile and web application space who need to quickly observe and repair errors that crop up in production.

“Sauce Labs and Backtrace are the perfect pairing for organizations that understand the importance of shifting both left and right to create the continuous feedback loop necessary to drive quality at speed,” said Abel Mathew, co-founder and chief executive of Backtrace.

Backtrace supports cross-platform monitoring and capture for numerous platforms including Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Xbox and more. It can also be implemented for languages such as C/C++, Electron and C# and frameworks such as Unreal Engine 4 and Unity.

Current development cycles require teams to work on tight schedules and release small increments of codes to production, sometimes in lifecycles of days or weeks. This requires tight communication within teams and monitoring capabilities that allow for visibility of ongoing errors across all environments, including production where they can cause the most damage to user experience.

“In the modern era of DevOps-driven development, a testing strategy that does not extend into production is simply not complete,” said John Kelly, chief technology officer of Sauce Labs. “The combination of Sauce Labs and Backtrace is a powerful one for customers.”

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