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FiftyThree Brings Ideas to Life Using Node.js with New Relic
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - API Integration & Management
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Software
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
Use Cases
- Manufacturing System Automation
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
The Challenge
FiftyThree, a company that develops tools for mobile creation, uses Node.js as its server-side code for enabling features like the in-app Made With Paper stream and the account system for ordering Moleskine Books. The development team chose this JavaScript approach for a couple of reasons, the first one being that they liked the simplicity of using the same language on both the back- and front-end. Node.js’ event loop model also made it perfectly suited for being a fast web server. And it didn’t hurt that there was an enthusiastic and fanatical community surrounding Node.js to help FiftyThree solidify its decision. With its new framework in place, however, the FiftyThree team knew it also needed a performance monitoring solution to ensure that Paper was delivering the best user experience possible.
About The Customer
FiftyThree is a company that develops tools for mobile creation. Its award-winning iPad app, Paper, allows makers and creators to capture their ideas as digital sketches, diagrams, illustrations, notes, or drawings, just as one would using a notebook or journal. Users can share their creations over the web, or choose to get their Paper content published as a custom-printed Moleskine. To date, more than 8 million people have downloaded Paper, and it’s no wonder—the app was named Apple’s 2012 App of the Year and received a 2013 Gold IDEA award in digital design from the Industrial Designers Society of America. With offices in New York and Seattle, FiftyThree brings together the craft of software, hardware, and service design.
The Solution
In March 2013, FiftyThree joined the pre-beta program for New Relic’s Node.js agent. “We immediately saw that Node.js and New Relic went hand-in-hand from the start,” says Aseem Kishore, developer at FiftyThree. “Compared to the other tools we’ve evaluated, it’s by far the most professional and does the best job of revealing the root cause of problems instantly.” After a few months of testing New Relic’s pre-beta Node.js agent, FiftyThree eventually upgraded to the product’s beta program—at which point, Kishore became even more impressed by the solution’s robust new features. Not only did Transaction Traces help him identify the root cause of problems in their Node.js transactions, but the App Map feature also provided superior visibility into their app’s external services.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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