customer story

Tencent Cloud

Expanding Global Presence With Catchpoint's Help

Tencent Cloud, a multinational technology conglomerate, is a new entrant in the CDN market in the US. With so many well-established competitors, every milli-second matters. Tencent Cloud and Catchpoint work together to:

Maintain high quality performance and availability.
Plan and support more effective pre-sales engagements.
Build a global presence to serve customers everywhere.
Scale and grow their global network.

Employees:

5,000-10,000

Revenue:

$2.4 Billion

Headquarters:

Shenzhen, Guangdong, China

Industry:

IaaS

In today's world, you must look at things from the customer perspective. As a global solution, Catchpoint provides trusted data that allows us to do just that.

Joshua Johnson

Cloud Solutions Architect

Problem

Based in Palo Alto, California, Tencent Cloud North America is the North American branch of Tencent Cloud, a leading provider of global cloud services and the cloud computing subsidiary of Tencent, a multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in China.

As a Chinese company pursuing new markets and growing rapidly in the U.S., Tencent maintains an entrepreneurial spirit. Key areas of focus and exploration include advertising, artificial intelligence, cloud services, entertainment, investments, payments, and security. Tencent Cloud’s growth strategy is built upon providing cloud-based services and products to businesses wanting to move into China and to Chinese businesses wanting to expand internationally.

While Tencent Cloud is ranked among the top Content Delivery Network (CDN) providers in China, the company is a new market entrant in the U.S. In his role, Joshua Johnson, Cloud Solutions Architect for Tencent Cloud, designs solutions for prospects and customers with various Tencent Cloud products and services. Validating the availabilty and performance of Tencent Cloud’s cloud infrastructure is critical in those situations.

“We are competing in a tight market and every millisecond matters,” explains Johnson.

Solution

Having used Catchpoint previously, Tencent Cloud’s Direction of Solutions Architect and Support recommended the vendor’s digital experience observability tool. According to Johnson, a number of features stood out. For one, Catchpoint works globally, including within China.

“We needed a tool that that crossed all international borders and we didn’t find another vendor with as strong a global presence,” says Johnson.

In addition to the ability to collect a vast amount of data because of its extensive network, Catchpoint provides many options for presenting data to a range of audiences.

“We can create dashboards specific to internal stakeholders and our customers. The amount of data and options for presenting it are phenomenal,” continues Johnson.

Johnson also appreciates the configuration options – such as automation and scripting, and pulling data via APIs – and Catchpoint’s continual evolution. According to Johnson, “I’m not sure how other observability vendors have adapted but Catchpoint seems to evolve at a faster rate.”

Supporting Pre-Sales Engagements

As Tencent Cloud is engaged with prospective customers, it uses Catchpoint to objectively validate its CDN performance and availability. Whether calling upon data in a competitive bakeoff or to troubleshoot an implementation during a proof of concept, the use of Catchpoint empowers Tencent Cloud to set itself apart.

“I would rather walk into an opportunity with data and performance metrics than without,” explains Johnson.

Serving Global Customers

The company also uses Catchpoint data with existing customers. As Johnson says, the competition is always working to displace an incumbent vendor.

“Catchpoint provides data on our availability and performance that we can use to combat competitor claims that they are better,” he says.

In fact, Tencent Cloud monitors Catchpoint data continually to ensure its network products and services are available globally at all times.

“We are a customer of our own CDN and products and rely on optimal performance and uptime as much as our customers,” Johnson continues.

Equipped to Expand Global Network

Though Johnson works for Tencent Cloud North America, the CDN service team works closely with the network and infrastructure teams, all based in China. Seeing the limitations of monitoring tools that were only useful for measuring performance in China, Johnson advocated for the China teams to embrace Catchpoint.

“Catchpoint addresses a global presence, which is essential as Tencent Cloud builds out its network around the world. With Catchpoint, we can provide teams with more data,” he explains.

The CDN team uses Catchpoint for internal observability, helping inform enhancements, network changes, changes to applications, and other tweaks designed to optimize performance. At the same time, the cloud services and network team uses Catchpoint on a more granular level, to understand details such as data transfer times and DNS status.

Results

According to Johnson, Catchpoint improves his working relationship with colleagues and his skill set.

“As a Solutions Architect, I have access to unbiased data that enables me to confirm my assumptions, support my stance, and eliminate skepticism. And the more adept I become at using Catchpoint, the stronger my contribution as a Solutions Architect.”

Just as important, Catchpoint empowers Tencent Cloud to take on industry giants.

“Catchpoint data provides an independent way of elevating us in sales engagements and also highlights opportunities for us to improve our offerings,” he explains.

To that end, Johnson is seeing more uptake of Catchpoint by Tencent Cloud colleagues in China.

“As we expand our business, we must be open to new tools. More of my colleagues are starting to adopt Catchpoint because they see the benefit of getting a more global take on performance and availability,” he concludes.