Visual Networks Further Drives Performance and Reliability Into WAN Networks with Visual UpTime v6.0; Customers Benefit from Increased Visibility of ATM Network Performance

Business Wire, July 26, 2001

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 26, 2001

Visual Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:VNWK), a leading provider of performance management solutions designed to drive performance and reliability into communications networks and services, today announced the industry's most comprehensive performance management solution to help service providers and enterprise customers manage and monitor wide area networks based on ATM, frame relay and IP technologies - or a combination of these technologies in an interworking environment.

Visual UpTime(R) v6.0, which will be available in Q3 2001, provides improved performance management support for ATM services and strengthens its unique solution for troubleshooting and managing complex, mixed ATM and frame relay network environments -- all from a single system.

"It is not an `either/or' decision for ATM and frame relay. With its global reach, ATM provides enterprises with high-speed WAN connectivity, while also enabling them to leverage, for instance, remote production facilities and sales offices that use frame relay," said Steve Hindman, executive vice president of sales and marketing, Visual Networks(R). "Visual UpTime is the only performance management solution that can manage mixed frame relay-ATM environments. The Visual UpTime integrated system results in substantial savings in platform investments, staffing, and IT development cost, as well as in significant time to market advantages."

Visual UpTime v6.0

Enhancements to Visual UpTime include enhanced protocol visibility, new ATM SLA validation tools that monitor cell loss, round-trip delay and availability, and extended ATM performance monitoring, reporting and troubleshooting capabilities. Visual UpTime v6.0 will also provide E3 ATM capabilities for managing international ATM circuits at line speeds up to 34Mbps within international or domestic based, multi-national ATM or frame relay-ATM networks.

These product enhancements enable the company to expand Visual Networks' addressable market by extending the reach of the Visual UpTime technology to third-party network equipment vendors. In a related announcement today, Visual Networks announced that ADC (NASDAQ: ADCT), a global supplier of fiber optics, network equipment, software and integration services for broadband, multi-service networks, will be the first company to license and integrate the Visual UpTime technology into their family of ATM access concentrators as part of Visual Networks' new "Make it Visual Partner Program(TM)".

Mixed Frame and ATM Market Opportunity

With the increase of mission-critical data and applications, enterprises are installing a growing number of high-speed WAN circuits and leveraging both the higher-speed ATM and more cost-effective frame relay in their networks. As the speed of the circuit increases, the need for performance management becomes more critical.

Industry analysts forecast that this trend will have a positive effect on the growth rate of ATM technology. A 2001 Vertical Systems Group study, entitled ENS 2001, predicts that between 2000 and 2004 U.S. ATM ports will have a compound annual growth rate of 33 percent. The study also estimates that U.S. frame relay ports will have a compound annual growth rate of 13 percent.

Benefits for Enterprise Customers

Visual UpTime enables enterprises to manage their WAN operations by providing real-time views of their networks. By proactively managing their transport services, companies can quickly isolate and fix problems within the network to reduce costly downtime.

Susquehanna International Group, LLP (SIG), a global trading and technology company based in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., has deployed the Visual UpTime wide area network performance management solution to manage the mission-critical network that supports its worldwide trading operations. In addition to supporting the company's internal corporate network and remote customer and vendor connections, Visual UpTime is used by SIG to monitor its frame relay and ATM circuits to the leading stock exchanges, including the NASDAQ, the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange and electronic communications-based exchanges, such as Instinet and Island.

"In today's increasingly global, virtual and around-the-clock trading environment, it is essential that we be able to monitor and troubleshoot potential network performance issues before they affect critical operations," said Hylton Socher, Chief Information Officer of SIG. "That is why we have deployed Visual UpTime across our entire wide area network - from remote international sites in Amsterdam and Dublin to remote domestic locations in New York, Chicago and San Francisco - all of which rely on our primary hub site to access critical market data."

Benefits for Service Providers

Visual UpTime -- which is used extensively by leading service providers of frame relay in offering meaningful, end-to-end performance management and monitoring for WAN transport services -- will now enable service providers to leverage their backend software investments in Visual UpTime to include ATM performance management service offerings. By standardizing the Visual UpTime platform as their performance management product, service providers can also create value-added service offerings based on ATM and ATM to frame relay interworking.