The Obkio Story: Building a Network Monitoring Solution

The increasing use of cloud services and SaaS applications has changed how networks and data flows work. This is especially true with the increased adoption of SD-WAN technology. These changes mean we rely even more on having a strong network to keep important applications running smoothly.

Most traditional network monitoring tools were created before these changes and can't keep up with today's demands. They were designed for centralized systems and struggled with the new, decentralized network setups.

Obkio’s team recognized this challenge and decided to develop a solution that monitors network performance from the end-user's perspective. A tool that simplifies Network Performance Monitoring and adapts to the needs of modern networks, ensuring everything runs efficiently and reliably.

Obkio was founded by Founder and CEO in 2018, Jean-François Lévesque. Jean-François studied Computer Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal with a specialization in networking and telecommunications. For over 10 years, he was the co-founder and CTO at Fibrenoire, a telecommunication company specializing in fibre optic connectivity for enterprises with services such as Private MPLS Networks, VoIP and Cloud connectivity.

Jean-François then partnered up with friend and former Fibrenoire colleague, Pierre-Luc Charbonneau. Pierre-Luc has 20 years of experience in Computer Networks and worked as the director of presales engineering and special projects at Fibrenoire, where he designed state-of-the-art connectivity solutions for medium and large enterprises. Pierre-Luc has encountered many networks, for many clients, and works very closely with the client to translate their needs and network problems into solutions with technical teams.

In 2023, Francis Gingras assumed the role of CEO, bringing with him a wealth of experience from a successful 30-year career in various tech companies. In his most recent position at Serti, a software provider for car dealerships, he was the chief architect and driving force behind the company’s transformation from a traditional project and software license business to a cutting-edge SaaS-based model.

Pierre-Luc Charbonneau on the left and Francis Gingras on the right.

In years of industry experience, we never found a tool that truly simplified network performance monitoring. We realized the world needed a tool that provided clear, end-to-end visibility of both application and network performance from the user's perspective.

Existing monitoring solutions rarely meet all these needs. They were often complicated to use, not user-focused, and mainly designed for large enterprises and Service Providers.

Inspired by the simplicity of SaaS applications, we created Obkio to fill this gap. Obkio is a Network Performance Monitoring tool that:

• Is SaaS-based
• Easy to install and simple to use
• Suitable for both small businesses and large enterprises
• Monitors network performance from the end-user perspective
• Uses a decentralized monitoring approach
• Provides end-to-end network performance monitoring
• Offers usage-based billing with no long-term commitment
• And much more!

As of 2024, Obkio empowers IT professionals and everyday users in over 40 countries with a simple network performance monitoring solution that is easy to use and identifies network performance issues in real time.