Speedgain throughout the ages: from a simple tool to a complex solution

In today's digital world, efficient database monitoring and management is critical to a company's success. The history of Speedgain shows how a practical idea became a powerful database monitoring tool that now supports numerous database systems and is used by companies worldwide. Speedgain has evolved over the years, adapting to ever-changing needs and technologies to provide database administrators with an indispensable tool.

Origin and development:

In 2003, four Db2 administrators recognized the need to efficiently monitor the performance of their databases. At that time, there was no suitable tool on the market that met their specific requirements. Due to this lack, they decided to pool their needs and develop their own monitoring tool. This resulted in the first scripted design, which soon matured into a fully-fledged product. This tool was initially known as “Speedgain for Db2”.  

The first official version, Speedgain for Db2 V1.0, was released in 2006 and used by administrators at their customers. Initially, the further development of Speedgain was rather conservative, with long intervals between the individual releases. However, with increasing experience and technological advances, development became more agile and flexible. Today, we implement many ad-hoc requests from customers every year, mostly relating to the display of measured values. These requests are made available directly and without a release in the shortest possible time and then integrated into the next release for all customers.  

Due to technological change and the increasing demands on modern observability solutions, Speedgain for Db2 was further developed into Speedgain for Databases (S4DBs) after 15 years. The further development was necessary in order to meet current standards and offer a future-proof solution. This change involved not only changing the architecture, programming languages, components and colors, but above all extending the monitoring capabilities to PostgreSQL databases. The development of this new version took around 1.5 years. Close cooperation with pilot companies, where stable pilot solutions were tested, played a decisive role. A new release based on the requirements of these pilot customers was implemented approximately every two weeks, resulting in a fast and flexible adaptation of the tool. The existing base of Speedgain for Db2 helped enormously, as the basic display requirements were clear and the focus was on other development aspects.  

Technological influences and development:  

Speedgain for Databases is a modern, cloud-native tool that utilizes the advantages of distributed computing. This architecture has a particularly positive impact on the scalability and flexibility of the application. To keep costs low for end customers, as many open source programs as possible have been integrated. The continuous consideration of the requirements and wishes of the community is a central component of Speedgain's development philosophy to ensure that the tool remains practical and up-to-date.  

Another important aspect is the continued use of part of the existing backend stack and the logic for determining the most important performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure seamless and efficient further development. Over time, the functionality of Speedgain for Databases has been significantly expanded by connecting more database systems, among other things. Initial support for Db2 and PostgreSQL was soon followed by connections for SQL Server, Oracle, Azure SQL, MongoDB, MariaDB/MySQL and finally “GenericDB”. These extensions enabled Speedgain to monitor a wider range of database environments simultaneously, making it even more versatile and useful for a growing number of customers.

Market entry and business model:  

Initially, Speedgain for Db2 was used by the developers themselves with customers to facilitate and improve their own work. The tool quickly found favor with customers, proved itself in practice and was eventually sold beyond direct customer use. The constant demand for further development arose not only from the desire to expand the scope of the application, but also in the direction of modernity and user-friendliness. Speedgain thus evolved from a one-off purchase with an optional service and maintenance contract to a subscription model. This model, which is also used by large companies such as Microsoft and Adobe, offers continuous, predictable costs for the end customer and enables sustainable further development and improvement of the product. 

Influence and success factors:  

Speedgain has significantly improved the day-to-day work of database administrators who use it. By saving time and money on monitoring, administrators can concentrate on other important tasks. Customers and consultants who work with Speedgain on a daily basis confirm this positive impact. One of the biggest success factors in Speedgain's history is the appointment of a dedicated product owner and the provision of additional internal budget for continuous development. Accelerated development was also made possible by close cooperation with pilot customers. These customers required a fast and highly flexible monitoring solution and provided valuable feedback that was directly incorporated into development. The regular feedback from colleagues who work with Speedgain on a daily basis and were therefore able to make practical suggestions for improvement was also very valuable. 

If you would also like to use the advantages of Speedgain in your company, you now have the opportunity to try out the free trial version. Try Speedgain for free until December 31st and see for yourself the benefits and efficiency of this powerful monitoring tool. Visit our website to start your trial and discover how Speedgain can simplify your database monitoring.