Micromuse Ships Netcool/Data Center Monitors v2.0; Reliability and Performance are Top Priorities for Enterprise Data Centers

Business Wire, Nov 7, 2001

Business Editors

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 7, 2001

Micromuse Inc. (Nasdaq: MUSE), the leading provider of business and service assurance software, today announced the general availability of its Netcool(R)/Data Center Monitors(TM) (Netcool/DCMs(TM)) suite, Version 2.0.

The Netcool/DCMs suite, which runs with Micromuse's flagship Netcool/OMNIbus(TM) application, expands Micromuse's library of monitoring software by providing realtime views of the availability of management systems and applications running in enterprise data centers.

The Netcool/DCMs suite monitors IBM zSeries (OS/390) mainframe and iSeries (AS/400) environments. This helps IT management teams consolidate the management of data centers with other Netcool-collected IT status data. It also helps them identify problems before the availability of data center systems and applications is affected. This proactive monitoring helps ensure the reliability and performance of system management applications, business services and processes.

"Today's IT managers are contending with increased administrative demands," said Elisabeth Rainge, Director at IDC, Framingham, Mass. "With the upgrade to its Netcool/DCMs suite, Micromuse has provided a set of technology building blocks that customers can use to integrate a realtime solution for comprehensive service assurance throughout the enterprise."

With version 2.0, the Netcool/DCMs suite comprises Micromuse's Netcool/DCM Fusion(TM) software applications for managing OS/390 environments, including the Fusion Console and Fusion TN3270 Monitors. The new release provides the following major functionality enhancements:

- Streaming console messages - Console messages are received in a message
stream, not mainframe console emulations.

- Improved console message management - The Netcool/DCMs console correlates
multi-line WTO (Write to Operator) messages and sends them as one message to
the Netcool Object Server(TM), Micromuse's high-speed in-memory database.

- Enhanced message responsiveness - Events received by the Netcool mainframe
console Monitor can be responded to directly by the Monitor or by the Netcool
ObjectServer.

- Enhanced Security - Sessions to the Netcool/DCMs console can now be secure
connections.

- Reliable Console Connection - The connection to the Netcool/DCMs console is
continually monitored to help ensure that it's always available.

Also with version 2.0, the Netcool/DCMs suite includes new Netcool monitors for IBM iSeries (AS/400) devices. The monitoring of the iSeries includes an event monitor that captures events generated on the iSeries server from system, application and user-definable messages. These events may then be forwarded to the centralized Netcool ObjectServer(TM) database for processing and appropriate response, including issuing commands on iSeries devices. Additionally, there are specific monitors for disk utilization, jobs, job queues, distribution queues, communications tasks and hardware error logs.

About the Netcool(R) Suite

Micromuse's Netcool(R) software suite provides businesses with the assurance that their networks, services and applications are working. By allowing our customers to see what's happening throughout the infrastructure in realtime, Netcool applications enable them to respond to problems before they cause network-based business services to go down.

Netcool suite applications install out-of-the-box, deploy rapidly and scale as networks grow. Micromuse's flagship, Netcool/OMNIbus(TM) application, includes a library of off-the-shelf software modules that allow our customers to collect and consolidate fault information from more than 300 popular environments spanning voice and IP, cable/broadband, switches and routers, and enterprise management systems.

About Micromuse

Micromuse Inc. (Nasdaq: MUSE) is the leading provider of business and service assurance software. Micromuse's recent list of awards include the TeleStrategies OSS Excellence Award for Best New Product for the Netcool(R)/Visionary(TM) application, and Web Hosting Magazine Editor's Choice Award. In addition, Micromuse has been recognized in the Forbes 500, Bloomberg's Top 100 Stocks, the Barron's 500, Deloitte & Touche's Technology Fast 500, San Francisco Chronicle 500, Individual Investor's Index of America's Fastest Growing Companies and Network World's NW200. Micromuse customers include AT&T, BT, Cable & Wireless, Cellular One, Charles Schwab, Deutsche Telekom, Digex, EarthLink, GE Appliances, ITC DeltaCom, J.P. Morgan Chase, One 2 One, Verizon, Worldcom and XO Communications. Headquarters are located at 139 Townsend Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94107; (415) 538-9090. The Web site is at www.micromuse.com.

Micromuse and Netcool are registered trademarks of Micromuse Ltd. All other trademarks and registered trademarks in this document are the properties of their respective owners. Any statements contained in this press release that do not describe historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on current expectations, but are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties.