Rookout
Rookout was an Israeli developer observability startup that developed a live debugging and code-level observability platform, enabling developers to collect real-time data from running applications in production without code changes, restarts, or performance impact.
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Rookout built a code-level observability platform that enabled developers to set non-breaking breakpoints in live production code, collecting variable values, stack traces, and application state data in real time—without requiring code changes, redeployment, or application restarts. The platform provided instant visibility into application behavior across any environment (cloud, on-premise, serverless, containerized) and integrated with existing logging, APM, and alerting tools.
Commercially, Rookout competed in the developer observability and debugging market alongside Lightrun, Ozcode, and traditional APM vendors like Datadog and New Relic. Founded in 2017 in Tel Aviv by Or Weis (CEO), Liran Haimovitch (CTO), and Oded Liberman, the company raised approximately $32M from investors including Cisco Investments, TLV Partners, Emerge, and F2 Venture Capital. In 2023, Dynatrace acquired Rookout to enhance its observability platform with code-level debugging capabilities.
From a defense and national security perspective, the ability to debug and observe mission-critical applications in production without disruption is directly relevant to maintaining defense software systems that cannot tolerate downtime. Live debugging of deployed military applications, secure cloud workloads, and real-time defense systems supports operational continuity while enabling rapid issue resolution.
Dual-Use Assessment
Live production debugging without downtime is critical for defense mission-critical applications that cannot tolerate restarts. Code-level observability for deployed military software enables rapid issue resolution while maintaining operational continuity of defense systems.
Key Technologies
- Non-breaking breakpoints for live production debugging
- Code-level observability without code changes or restarts
- Cross-environment support (cloud, on-prem, serverless, containers)
- Real-time variable and stack trace collection from production
- Integration with logging, APM, and alerting platforms
- Low-overhead instrumentation with minimal performance impact
Use Cases & Applications
- Production application debugging without code changes
- Code-level observability for microservices architectures
- Real-time troubleshooting of deployed cloud applications
- Developer productivity for complex distributed systems
- Defense mission-critical application debugging without downtime (dual-use)
- Military deployed software observability and issue resolution (dual-use)
Strategic Value to U.S.-Israel Alliance
Defense software systems require zero-downtime debugging and monitoring capabilities. Code-level observability for deployed military applications supports operational readiness and rapid issue resolution for mission-critical defense software.
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