Grafana Labs Inc. announced today it has acquired k6, a Stockholm-based startup with an open-source tool used by engineers at Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and other tech giants to find reliability issues in their software.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Crunchbase data shows that k6, which is incorporated as Load Impact AB, has not raised any outside funding.

Grafana Labs is the company behind one of the industry’s most popular platforms for finding infrastructure errors. Its platform can alert administrators to issues such as latency spikes and incidents where an application fails to process user requests. The startup provides the software in two versions: an open-source edition and a paid edition that includes extra features.

Through the acquisition of k6, Grafana is adding another popular open-source tool to its portfolio. The startup has developed a free load testing tool also called k6 that enables companies to test the reliability of an application by simulating a large number of user requests and seeing whether the application manages to handle the increased demand.

Like Grafana, k6 offers its software in two versions. It provides the core open-source edition alongside a paid cloud service that allows companies to simulate up to a million concurrent users as part of application reliability tests. Moreover, the platform makes it possible to customize what those simulated users do. For example, if developers are looking to check how well their application processes e-commerce orders, they can configure k6 to carry out a reliability test that mimics a large number of customers making purchases at the same time.

According to k6’s website, its tool is used by more than 6,000 companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Sephora, Citrix Systems Inc. and other big names.

Grafana Labs plans to integrate k6’s technology with its platform for finding technical errors. The vision is giving enterprises the ability to run a reliability test on a workload with k6 and then, using Grafana Labs’ error detection technology, identify and diagnose any technical issues that crop up during the test. Developers can use information gleaned during such tests to make improvements to their applications so they’ll perform better.

Grafana Labs Chief Executive Officer Raj Dutt noted that automated application reliability tests weren’t always accessible as they are today. That’s because simulating a large number of users requires a large amount of compute infrastructure, which in the past meant buying pricey on-premises hardware.

“In the past, load testing required costly infrastructure investments to run, resulting in only the most well-funded efforts reaping the benefits,” Dutt said. “These days, compute is available on demand and microservices are ephemeral, so it is far less costly to run test simulations.”

The reliability testing tool offered by k6 is far from the only product of its kind on the market, nor the sole open-source solution. However, it does have a key feature that could potentially make it easier for Grafana Labs to win market share from competitors: It’s fairly easy to use.

Launching a reliability test that simulates a large number of users requires writing scripts to coordinate the technical details. Developers typically have to write the scripts not in the programming languages they’re used to working with but rather a specialized syntax such as XML, which creates complexity. To reduce complexity, k6 provides the ability to write tests using JavaScript, a programming language with a relatively low learning curve.

Another way the startup has sought to improve ease of use is to reduce the need for code modifications. Normally, developers write and test the script for a reliability test on a laptop before deploying it to their company’s infrastructure. Because the technical parameters of a company’s backend infrastructure are vastly different from those of a laptop, the script often has to be modified before it can be deployed. According to k6, its tool eliminates that requirement and thereby saves work for developers.

The startup says that the result of the tool’s ease of use is a reduction of up to weeks in the amount of time it takes to code a reliability test. “By bringing k6 and Grafana together, we enable teams to radically improve the time to prevent, detect, and remediate problems before they impact end users,” Dutt said.

Application testing is an integral part of companies’ technology operations. Enterprises need to test their applications’ reliability issues to detect technical issues before they cause an operational disruption. Tech firms such as software-as-a-service providers, in turn, need to make sure their products work well for customers. SaaS firms often also have service-level agreements with corporate clients that require them maintain a certain level of reliability or else provide partial or full refunds. 

Image: Grafana Labs