An Interview with Dion Joannou, Accedian CEO: ‘We pride ourselves on delivering world-class expertise, enabling our customers to gain control of their digital infrastructure and becoming a trusted, critical partner in their digital lives’

The world has changed and users’ expectations have changed with it. They now expect their digital services to add value to their lives and the infrastructure that powers them to perform faultlessly. They expect the organizations they do business with to be in control of their data, their experience, and their safety. And when problems arise, they expect businesses to know more about their issues than they do. They demand an exceptional experience every time, and when it’s not, users expect instant resolution.

In light of the foregoing, we’re thrilled to present Accedian.

Accedian exists to solve these problems. They are the leader in performance analytics and end user experience solutions, giving enterprises the ability to dive deeper into the data, allowing network and IT operations teams to regain control.

Dion Joannou, Accedian CEO, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

Why was the company set up?

The company was initially formed to help network service providers (both wireless and wireline) measure, take control, and ultimately optimize and improve the performance of their networks, making them more competitive in their space.

Initial product solutions took the form of hardware devices typically installed at cell towers (wireless) or business premises (wireline). We found our initial success in North America and Europe.

When the time came to expand into different regions like APAC and LATAM, we found that the CAPEX and OPEX limitations in those regions meant that deploying hardware devices at the edge was not as practical or affordable. So, we virtualized the technology and turned it into a software solution. From this strategy came multiple Tier-1 Carrier success stories in both APAC (e.g. Reliance Jio, SK Telecom) and LATAM (e.g. Telefonica, etc.), as well as the rest of the world.

And how did you expand your company and its offerings over the years?

Over the years, both network service providers and enterprises started voicing the need for our technology to go higher up the stack towards application performance and to help directly assure their end user experience. To facilitate our move to the enterprise space, we acquired a network-based application performance monitoring company. We then entered the enterprise market, selling directly to large enterprise customers that had their own networks but wanted to assure the quality of the links they were leasing from carriers. Through the new acquisition, we are able to deliver end user experience visibility and help enterprises with migration to the cloud. Our customers reap the best outcome in terms of improved end-user digital experiences.

Customer service varies, but companies can still be successful. How do you maintain your customers’ trust and loyalty?

According to IDC, 46% of CIOs consider migrating IT to the cloud in order to deliver industry-leading performance and customer experience is a top priority for the coming two years. And, according to Vanson Bourne, 61% of CIOs feel entirely responsible for customer service. We are aware of this and we are here to help them. We generate trust and loyalty because we believe in the power of human relationships. We deliver outstanding service, the world’s most accurate measurement systems, and solutions that show less than six-month break even. And we deliver disruptive ease of use, where we are 75% more efficient than other performance analytics systems. That’s how we keep our customers - by becoming their trusted partners and making life easier for them.

How does your company contribute to the competitive global IT platform?

Accedian provides a number of leading-edge capabilities and unique benefits delivered by Skylight, our network performance and application performance management (NAPM) solution:         

• Software-only monitoring for complete visibility within public and private cloud infrastructures. Skylight does not require hardware-based packet capture and streaming but instead performance sensors are deployed in seconds anywhere in your environment to provide rapid time to insight. Skylight sensors generate extremely lightweight metadata that reduces network traffic significantly while still providing 100% traffic visibility
• Combined network performance monitoring and application performance (NAPM) in a single solution, in a single pane of glass view. Most competitive offerings provide either NPM or APM as separate offerings. Network and application performance data can be preserved for up to two years, making it particularly useful for identifying usage trends that might not be discernible within shorter periods of time
• Precision hardware sensors that enable active performance monitoring with millisecond microburst detection for the most demanding applications

In addition, we see opportunities to contribute to the global IT conversation in network traffic analysis (NTA) which uses a combination of machine learning, advanced analytics and rule-based detection to detect suspicious activities on enterprise networks. Accedian is turning a traditional paradigm on its head as we see performance and security as two sides of the same NTA coin. We provide complete visibility of both performance and security that leverage the same network data using the same sensors.

Accedian who has a rich tradition in world class performance analytics based on network traffic analysis is now disrupting the visibility market with security threat detection analytics based off of traffic analysis in the cyber security domain.

Leadership | Accedian

Patrick Ostiguy: Patrick Ostiguy founded Accedian in 2004 and serves as Founder and Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors. With more than 25 years in the telecom industry, Mr. Ostiguy has filed several patent applications and has published dozens of industry conference proceedings and technology articles.

Prior to founding Accedian, Mr. Ostiguy was a co-founder of Avantas Networks and launched the industry’s first portable Ethernet and SONET field-services test-set. Avantas was acquired for US$93M by EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering and Mr. Ostiguy continued his role in product management and participated in several M&A activities at the executive level. Prior to Avantas, Mr. Ostiguy was part of the initial Positron Fiber Systems (PFS) team that commercialized the industry’s first Ethernet over SONET Multi-Service Provisioning Platform (MSPP). PFS was acquired by Reltec in 1997 for $200M, and subsequently by Marconi.

Mr. Ostiguy is the recipient of the 2011 Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in Quebec in the technology solutions category for recognition of his exceptional leadership in driving growth, development and innovation in the industry.

Dion Joannou: As the CEO of Accedian, Dion’s mission has been to drive the evolution of Accedian into a performance analytics company that is delivering more value for customers as they transform their digital operations and migrate to the cloud and 5G. He brings with him extensive industry experience and insight that supports the scaling of Accedian’s market leadership position, as well as the success of Accedian in the new pioneering territory.

His previous experience includes serving as VP of global sales at Viavi, as CEO of two private companies, and as a board member or advisor for multiple public and private companies in the technology, software, and medical industries.

Dion previously spent 14 years at Nortel Networks in a variety of marketing, technical sales and support, and business development roles including leadership positions in the company’s wireless and ATM/IP businesses.

He holds an MBA in international business from the University of Miami, and a B.A. in business administration from Southern Illinois University.

“We are committed to empowering our customers with the ability to see far and wide across their IT and network infrastructure and a microscopic ability to dive deep and understand the experience of every user, helping them to delight their own customers each and every time.”