NodeSource Ensuring optimal performance and security for Node.js applications

Over 30 million websites rely on Node.js as the technology that serves customers, supporting messaging, commerce, recommendations, booking flights, and beyond. Developers and organizations seek to deliver these services quickly, effectively, and securely. Getting the right insights into their applications is often a real challenge, causing customer frustration and significant cost to resolve. Plus, it can be a big undertaking for Enterprise companies to find a partner who can help them on their Node journey by providing Node.js Support, performance assessments, and training.

NodeSource is the answer; founded in 2014, this company has become one of the world’s most premium vendors of Node.js. Through their innovative approach, they have developed the world’s leading Node.js observability and security platform powered by AI, N|Solid. With the increasing importance of application security, performance monitoring, and alerts, N|Solid is the “source,” offering observability and security in production, identifying security risks and other unforeseen issues, and digging even deeper to find the best performance insights that ultimately help build a stronger infrastructure while increasing reliability and staying as affordable as possible.

When it comes to technology products, innovation is everything. NodeSource stays committed to its mission to help developers access the power of Node.js and assist enterprises in adopting the technology safely through innovation and the building of products that deliver on the promise of helping forge better, more secure, and performant software.

CIO Bulletin had the opportunity to sit down with NodeSource, in an interview.

Q. How do you go about innovation in your workplace?

Innovation is a perpetual, all-encompassing effort in our workplace, where everyone has an active role. Fortunately, we have an extraordinarily diverse team of creative, inquisitive, and highly intelligent individuals. Their synergy enables us to look at everything with an innovative spirit. We conduct regular “idea sessions,” providing a platform for all members to share and discuss their concepts freely. During our sprint planning rhythms, we also allocate time to present and explore novel ideas. We maintain a flexible approach, often using platforms like Slack, where team members can spontaneously introduce and discuss fresh perspectives. We frequently find inspiration in new technology developments, like the recent advancements in AI, which have generated a multitude of fresh concepts while also resetting our product roadmap. In June, we announced a new set of AI-enabled features at Collision Conf that grew out of our team rapidly, showcasing how we can respond to new ideas and produce new capabilities for our customers.

Q. How do you measure progress on new ideas?

Our method of tracking progress on novel concepts is primarily customer-centric; we prioritize the needs and opinions of the individuals and teams who use N|Solid to build and maintain high-quality software. Customer feedback is an integral part of our evaluation process. We regularly review our product roadmap and compare our planned product enhancements against our actual deployments. This allows us to promptly identify the integration and actualization of innovative ideas into our products.

Q. What is NodeSource’s philosophy on innovation, and, more specifically, what do you see as your role in bridging the internal and external perspectives?

As mentioned before, we see it as a team sport. We are all tightly connected to our product but are exposed to different things; great ideas can come from anyone on the team. Additionally, we believe in diversity of thinking; we have a dynamic team located all over the globe. We believe it’s important to have a safe, open space where anyone can challenge ideas, not to knock them down but to help shape them into the best possible objectives for our product and customers. Additionally, we use our products daily, often alongside our customers; in this way, we can leverage that direct experience into our product innovation. It allows us to do both an inside-out AND outside-in approach to identifying new ways to deliver value.

Q. Why should organizations of all sizes successfully adopt and integrate Node.js?

Node.js is a powerful technology that has proven to be one of the most capable in speed, scale, and flexibility. It’s used by a global community of developers to build applications for companies of all sizes and is trusted by the Enterprise. We love Node and believe in the power of the technology, but we recognize the challenges of building complex, secure, and effective large-scale applications, so we are here to help. 

Q. What is N|Solid, and what are its key features?

N|Solid is an AI-powered observability platform that provides telemetry, monitoring, and security features that help organizations understand the health and performance of their Node.js applications from development through production. Our insights help teams discover performance and security issues that impact their customers and business, coupled with detailed information to help them resolve them quickly. A key differentiation between N|Solid and other solutions is that we don’t add overhead to the applications in production, reducing cloud and infrastructure costs by as much as 50%. We are releasing our AI Assistant – Adrian - soon that will help users better understand and resolve issues in their code – it’s like “god mode” for Node. It’s an exciting year for NodeSource.

Q. Where do you see the company in a few years? 

N|Solid is the future of Node, with millions of developers using our runtime, building and maintaining better software, saving money, and delivering business and user value. Our unparalleled insights, combined with AI, will help organizations build and support their Node apps better than ever. N|Solid is the future of Node, withmillions of developers using ourruntime, building and maintaining better software, saving money, anddelivering business and user value.Our unparalleled insights, combined

with AI, will help organizations build and support their Node apps better than ever. I see us delivering on our mission to enable developers and the enterprise with Node.js.

A brief biography of Vice President of Engineering, Adrian Estrada:

Adrian is one of our Node experts; a seasoned developer, team leader, and community organizer, currently serving as the VP of Engineering at NodeSource. He is deeply passionate about Node.js and the JavaScript ecosystem and has contributed to the Node.js core and other open-source JavaScript projects. Adrian is also the co-creator of the official Node.js certification exam and has invested significant time in training the community. As a community organizer, he has co-organized major events like MedellinJS, one of the biggest JavaScript communities in South America, and the conferences NodeConf Colombia and JSConf Colombia. Adrian is also an international speaker who has participated in multiple events around the globe. 

“Our insights help teams find performance and security issues that impact their customers and business.”