IT Operations

Intelligent Observability Platform for Enterprise IT Operations

Read Time7 minutes

IndustryIT Operations

Technologies

ReactNode.jsGolangGraphQLPostgreSQLNeo4JGoogle CloudKubernetes

Building a Next-Generation Observability Platform

Angular Minds partnered with WanAware to build a next-generation intelligent observability platform from the ground up. Launched in Boulder, Colorado in September 2024, the platform delivers real-time visibility across IT, IoT, OT, applications, services, and telecom circuits for Fortune 100 companies and global enterprises. WanAware transforms traditional reactive monitoring into intelligent, proactive observability, scanning 10 billion public IP addresses continuously and processing up to 100 billion data points simultaneously.

The Challenge

Enterprise organizations faced a growing gap between what their legacy monitoring tools could see and what their infrastructure actually contained. As environments grew more complex with cloud adoption, IoT devices, and distributed operations, the limitations of traditional observability became business-critical risks.

Incomplete Asset Visibility: Organizations struggled with unknown assets and inaccurate inventories across globally distributed IT, IoT, and OT infrastructure. Traditional tools failed to account for all connected assets and their interdependencies.
Expensive Legacy Integration: Integrating existing security and monitoring tools with legacy observability platforms proved prohibitively expensive, with some integrations costing up to $300,000. Traditional circuit monitoring alone cost $14 per IP address.
Reactive Firefighting Mode: Legacy remediation tools detected problems only after service disruption occurred, overwhelming IT teams with irrelevant alerts, manual tasks, and endless firefighting rather than strategic initiatives.
Complex Multi-Cloud Environments: Organizations lacked scalable observability across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud environments, compounded by a shortage of subject matter experts to manage diverse technology sprawl.
Alert Fatigue and False Positives: Complex environments like SAP and SD-WAN generated overwhelming noise, misclassified alerts, and false alarms due to lack of contextual understanding of network redundancy and system relationships.
Slow Traditional Deployment: Legacy asset management systems required weeks or months to implement, delaying time-to-value and creating operational risk during extended deployment periods.

Core Platform: Intelligent Observability

We built a platform that replaces reactive monitoring with intelligent, proactive observability. Every component was designed to deliver contextualized insights at unprecedented scale.

Agentless Asset Discovery: Automated discovery and real-time inventory of all connected assets with IP or URL, covering IT infrastructure, IoT devices, OT systems, applications, services, and telecom circuits. Deployment in minutes, not weeks.
Knowledge Discovery Engine: Graph database-powered intelligence analyzes up to 100 billion data points simultaneously, mapping relationships between assets, network paths, and data flows to deliver contextualized insights and automated remediation within seconds.
Comprehensive Vulnerability Scanning: Continuous scanning of 10 billion public IP addresses daily, leveraging nmap's top 1,000 ports to complete vulnerability assessments in just 11 seconds per 1,000 ports. Dynamic asset discovery identifies unknown assets and shrinks the attack surface.
Proactive Performance Monitoring: Real-time detection of cybersecurity threats, performance degradation, and availability issues before they impact business operations. Circuit-level monitoring with automated ticketing and SLA reporting for telecom infrastructure.
Intelligent Alert Management: Context-aware alerting system understands operational impact, network redundancy (SD-WAN), and real-time redundancy awareness (SAP environments) to eliminate false positives and reduce alert fatigue.

Multi-Environment Integration

The platform provides seamless connectivity across the entire IT infrastructure, from cloud providers to on-premise systems to telecom circuits.

Multi-Cloud Native Integration: Direct ingestion of resources and architectures from AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud for unified asset inventory management across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
Flexible Data Collection: Multiple integration pathways including Netflow capture, VMware integration for on-premise infrastructure (agentless), EDR tool integration (CrowdStrike and others), AI-powered Visio diagram ingestion, manual input, and bulk upload capabilities.
Policy Enforcement and Compliance: Built-in compliance insights identify vulnerabilities and align with regulatory standards, providing centralized governance for security and compliance across distributed technology environments.
Real-Time Enrichment: Continuous network scanning with automated asset data enrichment, delivering real-time updates and relational insights through visual dependency maps.

Implementation Approach

The platform was built for speed and scale from day one, with an architecture that supports Fortune 100 requirements while maintaining rapid deployment capabilities.

Ground-Up Native Development: Purpose-built remediation platform handling automation natively without reliance on external Python scripts or third-party APIs, ensuring performance and reliability at scale.
Phased Deployment Capability: Modular architecture supporting rapid deployment in minutes with seamless expansion across environments, including cloud providers, on-premise infrastructure, and endpoints, without service interruption.
Continuous Intelligence Layer: Knowledge Discovery Engine operates continuously, analyzing system relationships, automating remediation workflows, and ensuring alerts tie directly to operational impact with business context.
Enterprise-Scale Architecture: Designed to support Fortune 100 companies with globally distributed assets, including operations in challenging and hostile locations requiring robust, resilient monitoring.

Results and Impact

The platform delivered transformative results across multiple dimensions:

10 billion public IP addresses scanned continuously with 100 billion data points processed simultaneously
Vulnerability scanning completed in just 11 seconds per 1,000 ports
Deployment reduced from weeks or months to minutes with agentless architecture
Real-time accurate inventory eliminating unknown asset frustration across distributed infrastructure
Circuit monitoring cost reduced to $10 per circuit vs. $14 per IP for legacy solutions
Eliminated $300K+ integration costs through native, agentless architecture
IT teams freed from reactive firefighting to focus on strategic initiatives
Proactive threat detection before business impact with comprehensive vulnerability visibility
Automated compliance insights aligned with regulatory standards

Technologies and Tools

Built with a modern, high-performance stack designed for real-time processing at massive scale. React powers the frontend, Node.js and Golang handle backend services, GraphQL provides the API layer, Neo4J drives the Knowledge Discovery Engine, and the entire platform runs on Google Cloud Kubernetes Engine with Auth0 authentication and Permit.io authorization.

React

Node.js

Golang

GraphQL

PostgreSQL

Neo4J

Google Cloud

Kubernetes

Why Angular Minds

Capabilities demonstrated in this engagement:

Complex Systems Engineering: We architected and built a platform capable of processing 100 billion data points simultaneously while maintaining real-time responsiveness, delivering engineering excellence at massive scale.
Graph Database Expertise: Implemented Neo4J-powered Knowledge Discovery Engine that transforms raw telemetry into visual relationship maps, delivering contextualized intelligence that sets WanAware apart from legacy monitoring tools.
Enterprise-Grade SaaS Architecture: Built a multi-tenant platform serving Fortune 100 companies with global infrastructure requirements, ensuring security, compliance, and performance across diverse, distributed environments.
Modern Technology Integration: Leveraged a cutting-edge stack (React, Node.js, Golang, GraphQL, Kubernetes) with sophisticated authentication (Auth0) and authorization (Permit.io/Zanzibar) for enterprise security.
Domain Expertise in Observability: Developed deep understanding of IT operations, network monitoring, vulnerability management, and multi-cloud infrastructure, translating complex technical requirements into intuitive, actionable insights.
Rapid Time-to-Market: Delivered production-ready platform enabling WanAware's successful market launch in September 2024, supporting immediate customer acquisition including Fortune 100 enterprises.

Conclusion

Angular Minds transformed WanAware's vision of intelligent observability into a market-ready platform that redefines enterprise IT operations. By combining agentless architecture, graph database intelligence, and real-time processing at unprecedented scale, we delivered a solution that shifts organizations from reactive firefighting to proactive, data-driven IT management.

The platform's rapid deployment, cost-effectiveness, and comprehensive visibility across IT, IoT, OT, and telecom infrastructure positions WanAware as a compelling alternative to expensive legacy observability tools, proving that modern architecture and intelligent automation can democratize enterprise-grade observability.

Results & Impact

Measurable outcomes that drove real business value

IP Addresses Scanned

Continuous scanning of 10 billion public IP addresses daily

Data Points Processed

Knowledge Discovery Engine processes up to 100 billion data points simultaneously

Vulnerability Scan Speed

Complete vulnerability assessment per 1,000 ports using nmap's top 1,000 ports

Deployment Time

Agentless deployment in minutes vs. weeks or months for legacy systems

Circuit Monitoring Cost

Per circuit for full-scale telecom monitoring with automated ticketing and SLA reporting

Integration Savings

Eliminated expensive legacy integration costs through native, agentless architecture

Client Feedback

"Customers came to us because they noticed our ability to monitor infrastructure effectively and find issues others missed. That demand led to WanAware becoming the platform it is today."

Jeff Collins•Chairman, WanAware

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