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Another year passed meant another trip to New York City for Datadog’s annual DASH conference, and somehow it just keeps getting better. This year’s event delivered 2 days packed with product announcements, meaningful connections, and more than a few memorable moments. RapDev came ready to represent, and if the event was any indication, the partnership between Datadog and us has never been stronger.
Back-to-Back-to-Back (and Back Again): Partner of the Year, Five Times Over
Before the main conference even kicked off, Datadog hosted their annual Partner Summit: a gathering of the ecosystem's top partners to celebrate wins and look ahead. For RapDev, the evening turned into a double celebration.
First, RapDev took home the Datadog North American Partner of the Year award for the fifth consecutive year. Five years in a row is no accident, as it reflects the consistent, high-quality work our teams put in every single day for our customers.
If that wasn't enough, RapDev also walked away with the Datadog Marketplace Partner of the Year award, recognizing both our investment in building and maintaining top-tier integrations in the Datadog Marketplace and working with Datadog customers to ensure they deliver the value they are looking for out of Datadog. Two trophies in one night was not a bad way to start the week.
BitsAI: 'AI' Stands for 'All of It'
As I’m sure most could have predicted, the keynote consisted of what seemed to be dozens upon dozens of new AI features powered by Bits. From natural language querying and artifact creation to a coding assistant to automated AI-determined actions with guardrails, BitsAI has so many new skills that it might need to be given a full benefits package at this point. While all of these features are amazing, the other few that stood out the most to me were definitely:
- Newtwork Configuration Management: Being able to view, compare, and audit changes to network infrastructure is something that our customers have been yearning for for a long time. This brings an additional feature that is found in other observability tools into the hands of Datadog, with automated correlation with the metrics already being collected by Network Device Monitoring.
- Real User Monitoring Journeys: Tying together Product Analytics, Synthetics, and overall technical performance of the critical flows and transactions of frontend applications has the potential to be a major game changer for RUM customers, as it provides a centralized view dedicated to monitoring the overall experience of end users of these applications.
- AI Agent Console: AI-powered features are cool and all, but those come at a cost. With the AI Agent Console, Datadog customers can track the cost, usage, and impact of their favorite AI agents right within their favorite platform.
RapDev Takes the Stage
Product announcements are exciting, but one of the best parts of DASH is watching the practitioner community share real-world stories. RapDev had three of our own on stage this year, and each one brought something unique to share with Datadog customers.
55 Hospitals, 4 Weeks, 0 Downtime
RapDev’s Dan Roy and Advent Health’s Hector Castaneda joined forces on a DASH main stage to walk through our project of migrating Advent Health, a system spanning 55 hospitals, off legacy infrastructure, security, and logging tooling and onto Datadog in just 4 weeks. The session covered how the team approached risk at scale: which guardrails were put in place, how compliance was maintained throughout the cutover, and most critically, how patient care operations were never impacted during the transition. High stakes, tight timelines, zero margin for error, Dan and Hector brought that story to life in a way that resonated well beyond the healthcare vertical.
AI Doesn't Fix Observability - It's a Force Multiplier
RapDev’s Logan Rohloff made the case that AI-powered triage and remediation tools are only as effective as the observability foundation underneath them, and that many organizations aren't as ready as they think. Drawing from patterns seen across RapDev customer engagements, the talk walked through the problem of rushing into AI-powered triage and remediation. It covered common prerequisites that, based on RapDev’s experience across 600+ Datadog projects, should be handled prior to integrating AI into your troubleshooting workflows, as well as some low-effort ways these issues can be circumvented. The takeaway wasn't "don't use AI," it was "here's what to fix first so AI actually works."
From Ad-Hoc to Agentic: Maturing a Threat Hunting Program on Datadog
Jason's session was built for security practitioners thinking about the long game on Datadog. Rather than a feature walkthrough, it laid out a strategic maturity roadmap across five levels from the reactive, ad-hoc threat hunting that most teams start with, all the way to a proactive, agentic security model driven by AI. Each level was grounded in concrete steps: what data to ingest and normalize, how to build platform expertise, where automation pays off first, and what the path to AI-driven threat hunting actually looks like in practice. If you're building out a security program on Datadog and wondering what "mature" looks like, this was the blueprint.
The Annual Versa Rooftop Tradition Continues
If you attended previous RapDev x DASH happy hours, you already know RapDev doesn't do things halfway. The annual Versa Rooftop happy hour has become something of a DASH institution at this point, and 2026 kept the streak alive.
We brought back the pedicabs to get guests from the Javits to Versa safely and in style. Food, drinks, and great conversations accompanied us as hundreds of engineers, practitioners, and other industry professionals unwound after an action-packed day one. And last but not least, the puppies made their annual return, and they might be the most anticipated item on the DASH agenda at this point.
Beyond the good food and good company, this happy hour has always served a purpose that doesn't show up on any official agenda. It's where we actually get to talk with and see the faces of both customers we’ve been working alongside for days, weeks, months, or even years, as well as any DASH newcomers just looking to have a great time. Some of the best ideas and partnerships that come out of DASH happen over a drink on that rooftop, not in a breakout session. This year was no exception.
Five years as Partner of the Year. Three sessions on the biggest observability stage of the year. One rooftop that somehow keeps getting more crowded. DASH 2026 was a reminder of why this event stands apart. It's not just for the product announcements, but for the rare chance to sit across from the customers and peers we work with every day and actually connect in person. The bar keeps getting raised, and we wouldn't have it any other way. See you at DASH 2027.
If you were there and we didn't get a chance to connect, or if something from this post sparked a question, reach out to us.
