New Visual Insights Software Provides End-to-End Monitoring of Enterprise Applications

Business Wire, Feb 11, 1999

NAPERVILLE, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 11, 1999--

Interactive Data Visualization Based Product

Protects Investment in Mission-Critical Software

Managers of distributed software applications have a new and indispensable tool for tracking and analyzing the end-to-end performance of enterprise-wide applications, following today's introduction of Visual Insights Software for Application Performance.

Visual Insights, a wholly owned business venture of Lucent Technologies, provides interactive data visualization products and services for business decision making. Its patented technology represents the commercialization of more than six years of Bell Laboratories research and development efforts in data visualization.

Visual Insights Software for Application Performance allows companies to achieve higher end-user productivity, increases user satisfaction levels, conserves trouble-shooting resources, and tracks and reports performance. It helps companies diagnose, prevent and repair application problems, saving valuable time and money.

"Companies are making huge investments in developing and deploying enterprise-wide applications, placing immense pressure on the IT managers who are responsible for the performance of these systems," said Michael Tatelman, vice president of marketing and business development for Visual Insights. "Interactive data visualization enables IT managers to easily diagnose and repair problems, keeping end-user productivity high and increasing the overall return on these investments."

End-to-End Approach Offers Comprehensive Analysis

Visual Insights Software for Application Performance introduces a comprehensive model for monitoring enterprise applications. Competitive approaches have focused on the server side of the application-performance equation, or have required the addition of complex reporting "hooks" to the applications themselves.

Visual Insights offers end-to-end monitoring by including "client capture" software agents that can be automatically distributed to all end-user PCs or devices and monitored remotely.

With its end-to-end approach, Visual Insights facilitates the following capabilities and solutions:

--   Monitors application performance and availability continuously as
     end users experience it

--   Initiates corrective action plans based on the specific error
     conditions

--   Collects and visualizes detailed usage and diagnostic data

--   Isolates response-time problems to specific applications,
     networks or devices

--   Validates and analyzes the end user's performance experience

--   Establishes accurate, measurable, service-level goals for
     enterprise applications

--   Tracks and reports IT performance against established
     service-level objectives

Visual Insights Software for Application Performance monitors a variety of application and system criteria and conditions, including response time, server availability, system latency, transaction status, requests/returns and error conditions. It captures detailed diagnostic information on problems at the moment they occur and applies interactive data visualization to analysis of this data. This allows IT managers to discover trends and patterns among these problems that would be virtually impossible to identify through typical spreadsheet or SQL database analytical tools. For example, it might identify configuration problems in client workstations that may inhibit their response times.

Visual Insights Software for Application Performance supports applications based on Oracle 7 and 8; Sybase 4, 10 and 11 and Microsoft SQL Server 6.5, as well as applications built in PowerBuilder, Microsoft Visual Basic, Developer 2000, ODBC, JDBC and other popular development environments.

The Controller and Console components of the product operate as Microsoft Windows NT applications, and the agents operate within Microsoft Windows 95/98, Windows NT 4.x, and UNIX (Sun Solaris) operating systems. The software can access data from any SQL-based relational database management system.

The software is available through Visual Insights directly or through authorized resellers and system integrators who are certified through the Visual Insights Pioneer Program. Basic configuration pricing starts at $32,500 for a single application server supporting an unlimited number of users.

For more information on Visual Insights Software for Application Performance, call Visual Insights at 630/713-0800 or visit the Web site at www.visualinsights.com.