Case Study: CAIDA achieves streamlined global research collaboration and secure project management with Mattermost

CAIDA chooses Mattermost to streamline global research collaboration through better project management

CAIDA, the Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis at UC San Diego, needed a modern, secure way for its distributed research teams to collaborate. For 20 years the group relied on an IRC‑like, text‑based tool that was hard for new users, lacked file sharing, and required creating UNIX accounts—introducing onboarding friction and security concerns—so they evaluated alternatives and found Mattermost, the open source enterprise messaging workspace.

CAIDA deployed Mattermost (self‑hosted in their data center) in June 2017 and migrated fully within a month; the system was up and running in a few days and the old chat was retired. Mattermost improved onboarding (zero training for workshop attendees), sped issue resolution and asynchronous collaboration, strengthened community ties across workshops and projects, and increased research productivity by making real‑time coordination and file/math sharing simple—benefits CAIDA continues to extend with Mattermost integrations and webhooks.

CAIDA

Josh Polterock

Manager of Scientific Projects