BigPanda Introduces AI-Powered External Observability and a New Partnership with Downdetector by Ookla

Key Terms

telemetry technical

Telemetry is the automatic collection and transmission of measurements from remote devices, systems, or patients to a central system for monitoring and analysis—like a car sending engine, speed and location data back to a dashboard. For investors it matters because telemetry provides real-time evidence of product performance, safety and user behavior, helping assess revenue potential, operational risk, regulatory compliance and whether a product is meeting market demand.

saas technical

SaaS, or Software as a Service, is a way of delivering computer programs over the internet, allowing users to access and use them through a web browser without needing to install or maintain the software themselves. For investors, it highlights a business model where companies generate recurring revenue by providing ongoing access to their software, often leading to predictable income and growth potential.

ddos protection technical

DDoS protection is a set of tools and services that defend a website or online service against distributed denial-of-service attacks, where many compromised devices flood a target with traffic to slow it down or make it unavailable. For investors, it matters because reliable protection keeps a company’s online operations running—like security guards and extra doors preventing a crowd from blocking entry—helping preserve revenue, customer trust, uptime and avoiding costly outages or regulatory trouble.

New partnership delivers real-time insight into third-party outages, enabling enterprises to resolve incidents faster and with greater confidence.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BigPanda, a leading provider of agentic IT operations solutions, announced today a strategic integration with Downdetector® by Ookla®, bringing real-time visibility into third-party outages directly into BigPanda AI Incident Assistant. The integration gives enterprise IT teams immediate, actionable insight into external service disruptions that can impact their applications and customers.

As enterprises become increasingly dependent on cloud providers, SaaS platforms, and internet services they don’t control, identifying the true cause of incidents has become harder—and slower. BigPanda’s external observability capability addresses this challenge by combining internal telemetry with internet-scale external signals, enabling teams to quickly determine whether an incident is caused by their own environment or a third-party dependency. These include:

• Social media and user reports (via Downdetector)
• Third-party application status (SaaS, Cloud, ISPs)
• Environmental factors (Power outages, weather events, natural disasters)

Harnessing Real-Time External Signals

Downdetector is the world's most popular platform where people go to see if online services are not working, providing transparent, real-time insights based on user reports and problem indicators from across the web. Through this integration, BigPanda brings those external signals directly into AI Incident Assistant, allowing enterprises with a Downdetector license to gain situational awareness of not only what’s happening within their infrastructure, but also across the internet. This allows incident responders to quickly pinpoint the true root cause of incidents. Other benefits include:

• Avoid painful bridge calls by quickly ruling out internal code or infrastructure issues.
• Reduce "Mean Time to Innocence" with immediate clarity that the incident is caused by factors outside your organization’s environment.
• Accelerate root cause analysis by identifying external factors immediately rather than at the end of a checklist.
• Communicate proactively to end users when the issue is caused by an external outage. This clarity allows them to involve only essential responders, eliminating unnecessary participants from bridge calls and keeping teams focused on high-value work.

Catching Gaps in Monitoring with External Observability

A global gaming publisher leveraged Downdetector to uncover external incidents that evaded their internal dashboards. In one instance, they identified a critical issue where DDoS protection blocked valid traffic and silenced their internal telemetry. This shows how external observability provides context when internal monitoring goes quiet.

“With BigPanda and Downdetector, we caught a major incident where a DDoS protection layer was blocking valid traffic and preventing our own telemetry from being sent. Our internal dashboards showed green, but the external signals triggered an immediate investigation. That kind of 'outside-in' visibility is the only way to detect failures that silence your own monitoring tools.” — Engineering Leader, Major Global Gaming Studio

About BigPanda

BigPanda delivers agentic automation for IT Operations. We enable enterprises to keep the digital world running by transforming manual and reactive human processes into intelligent, autonomous systems that detect, respond, and prevent IT incidents at machine speed. That’s why the world’s most trusted brands rely on BigPanda to improve operational efficiency and deliver exceptional service reliability to their customers.

Learn more at www.bigpanda.io.

About Ookla®

Ookla, a global leader in connectivity intelligence, brings together the trusted expertise of Speedtest®, Downdetector®, Ekahau®, and RootMetrics® to deliver unmatched network and connectivity insights. By combining multi-source data with industry-leading expertise, we transform network performance metrics into strategic, actionable insights.

Our solutions empower service providers, enterprises, and governments with the critical data and insights needed to optimize networks, enhance digital experiences, and help close the digital divide. At the same time, we amplify the real-world experiences of individuals and businesses that rely on connectivity to work, learn, and communicate. From measuring and analyzing connectivity to driving industry innovation, Ookla helps the world stay connected.

Ookla is a division of Ziff Davis (NASDAQ: ZD), a vertically focused digital media and internet company whose portfolio includes leading brands in technology, entertainment, shopping, health, cybersecurity, and tech.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251216388641/en/

Media Contact:

Adam Blau

VP of Product Marketing

adam@bigpanda.io

Media contact:

Michelle Badrian

Senior Communications Director

press@ookla.com

Source: BigPanda