There are many providers that offer to help companies keep better track of their cloud infrastructure, but few are as specialized as IOpipe Inc. The startup, which today announced that it has closed a $2.5 million funding round, focuses on monitoring the so-called serverless applications that started cropping up in recent years.

They first began emerging en masse after Amazon Web Services Inc. launched its Lambda platform in 2014. The service provides the ability to run code without having to maintain the underlying infrastructure or even write an entire application. Developers only need to define the conditions in which their script should execute, and Lambda takes care of the rest.

The automated nature of the service means that there are far fewer moving pieces to keep track of than in a normal cloud environment. But the scripts running on top of Lambda must still be watched closely for any issues that may impact the services they support, which where IOpipe comes into the picture.

The startup’s platform allows developers to collect operational data by adding just a few lines of code lines to their Lambda functions. Once it’s set up, IOpipe will start tracking performance, error rates and a wide variety of other details. Companies can also create custom metrics if their requirements are not met by the default selection.  

The gathered data is distilled into a visual dashboard designed to make it easy for users to determine when something is wrong. Moreover, an alerting mechanism enables companies have relevant personnel automatically notified if a particularly important metric crosses a certain threshold.

There’s a potentially sizable market for the startup’s platform. Serverless computing is gaining a lot of steam in the enterprise, with companies using Lambda for everything from data management to serving up push notifications. The revenue opportunity could increase even further if and when IOpipe decides to add support for the similar services provided by AWS’s cloud rivals, such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

But to capitalize on the demand, the startup will have to overcome significant competition. Datadog Inc., New Relic Inc. and Dynatrace Inc. and several other better-established monitoring providers support for Lambda as well. 

Today’s funding is intended to help put IOpipe in a better position to pursue its plans. The investment saw the participation of Madrona Venture Group, New Enterprise Associates and early-stage fund Underscore VC.

TheCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s video unit, interviewed IOpipe founder and Chief Executive Officer Erica Windisch Monday at the AWS Summit in New York:

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