Former Arbor Networks leaders launch new Ann Arbor-based cloud data company
DeepField founders Joe Eggleston, left, and Craig Labovitz at the company's office in the Tech Brewery
Jeffrey Smith | AnnArbor.com
“We’ve developed something we call our cloud genome technology, which is pretty groundbreaking,” Naim Falandino, a recent University of Michigan masters graduate and DeepField's chief data scientist, said.
DeepField launches Tuesday, and already has a base of paying customers and private beta users. Falandino said he could not reveal companies currently using the system, but they include major internet companies. Data gathered by the company's technology has been featured in Wired Magazine, PCMag.com, and Computerworld.
The company is also venture capital funded and has investors that range from a fund in Houston, Tex. to RPM Ventures here in Ann Arbor.
Tackling the daunting challenge of producing a system that could analyze massive amounts of data produced by servers in all corners of the globe was the brainchild of two men who were also on the ground floor of developing Arbor Networks.
Craig Labovitz and Joe Eggleston had both been at Arbor Networks for approximately 10 years in spring 2011 when they left the company to found DeepField.
“The real problem we identified is that everything is changing in the way companies build stuff on the internet. [The internet and the cloud] are the most complicated thing we’ve ever built in human history,” Labovitz, CEO of DeepField, said.
“Understanding how the money works, understanding how the pieces fit together is just very hard today.”
Naim Falandino graduated from U of M's School of Information with a masters in human-computer interaction and big data science
Jeffrey Smith | AnnArbor.com
While 10 years ago, a website would be housed on an in-house server, today pieces of different web operations come from all over the world.
“A while ago AnnArbor.com would have had a closet where a server that literally held AnnArbor.com would have been stored,” Labovitz said.
“The way you build stuff today you have a piece from Amazon over here, and widgits from another place over here, and that might be running from a data center in D.C. It’s a very different world how these services are built, and you just need one part of the chain to fail for bad things to happen.”
Falandino said the company analyzes “flow” data from servers that allows them to essentially “map” the internet and see how different types of data get from point A to point B.
“All services have a traffic signature that functions as its DNA,” he said.
The cloud genome technology can learn identify these signatures and then modules that the company has developed help users to interpret the data and make it functional for them.
Falandino said users of the product could range from large companies that want to see how their internal “cloud” is functioning to local internet carriers that want to know how much the transmission of certain types of information is costing them.
“With our analytics we can go down to the user level and tell you how many people are watching Netflix on a PlayStation 3 right at this moment,” he said.
He added that companies can use this data to make their systems run more efficiently, which can save a lot of money.
The company has about 15 employees and is looking to hire more local talent. Falandino said they are looking to add a sales engineer, a full-time user interface expert, and a user experience intern.
DeepField is housed at the Tech Brewery and Labovitz said he is excited to continue building the company here in Ann Arbor.
Labovitz said that building a company in Ann Arbor is much different today than when Arbor Networks was just starting a little over 10 years ago.
“[Then], interns had no idea about start-ups,” he said.
“Now, thanks to programs at the University of Michigan, they are coming in already seasoned and experienced.”
Ben Freed covers business for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at 734-623-2528 or email him at benfreed@annarbor.com. Follow him on twitter @BFreedinA2
Comments
LXIX
Tue, Jul 31, 2012 : 4:42 p.m.
Arbor Networks? The Tech Brewery? Who dat? Glad to know the City is contemplating big tax relief for these "higher techs" just ike they are for Bill aka Baracuda. Tech Brewery -> http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/tech-brewery-in-ann-arbor/
Ron Granger
Tue, Jul 31, 2012 : 7:03 p.m.
@lxix: "Shouldn't they get the smooze treatment as well?" Make the case. Barracuda is getting $85K in property tax relief over five years after making a $6-7 million dollar investment by moving into a vaccant building. They expect 300-400 employees at the facility. They are a stable, profitable company.
LXIX
Tue, Jul 31, 2012 : 5:55 p.m.
Presumably @LXIX.. Here are some very bright energetic valueable local entrepreneurs generating new and potentially lucrative future employment for Ann Arbor's already established "tech Centre". Did they or their landlords ever get tax incentives to stay here? Give Bill Martin Realty taxpayer money for Border's Global hole revival under the guise of growing A2 jobs with a California e-mail security firm but what about all of those locally brewed techs? Shouldn't they get the smooze treatment as well?
markguy
Tue, Jul 31, 2012 : 4:50 p.m.
Dear 69, I don't understand your comment....
Lovaduck
Tue, Jul 31, 2012 : 4:35 p.m.
Why do guys when photographed always hold their hands like a fig leaf? It looks so "protective"!
xmo
Tue, Jul 31, 2012 : 3:02 p.m.
I wonder why the UAW and AFL-CIO do not try to get their members to start new businesses? After all, they would be creating more highly skilled and paying Union Jobs! Instead, these guys are doing it and not creating Union Jobs!