Micromuse Empowers Organizations Worldwide to Achieve Successful Virtual CMDB Initiatives

Business Wire, May 12, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO -- Leading Business Assurance Vendor Delivers ITIL Best Practice Solution for Systematic and Professional Approach to Managing and Streamlining Service Delivery and IT Processes

Micromuse Inc. (Nasdaq: MUSE), the leading provider of ultra-scalable, realtime business and service assurance software, today announced that its patented realtime data access technology, available in Micromuse's Business Service Management(TM) (BSM) solutions, has been adopted by large enterprises, service providers, and government agencies as the industry's first realtime engine for achieving virtual configuration management data base (CMDB) implementations. Micromuse's patented dynamic data access technology leverages an organization's existing investments in third party and proprietary applications and data stores, allowing them to coalesce data from any mix of distributed data sources without the need for a monolithic centralized data store. This information is then delivered in a virtual CMDB view for a common, consistent, and standardized point from which to drive all critical IT processes and functions. Micromuse's patented realtime data access technology is the first to help organizations worldwide achieve a truly virtualized CMDB model for managing the wide range of service delivery and IT processes.

"Both the IT community and the vendor community have a unique view of just what a CMDB should be," said Dennis Drogseth, Vice President, Enterprise Management Associates. "One of the key areas of differentiation is time-sensitivity. Depending on the tasks supported, some CMDB implementations will have to be more dynamic than others. Micromuse's virtual CMDB reflects a preference for flexibility and open-ended, realtime access to meaningful information with consistent visualization, rather than the creation of an architectural data store with consistent schema across all fronts."

CMDB implementations based on Micromuse's BSM solutions provide the right information to the right people at the right time for improved workflow efficiency and productivity. The solutions easily adapt to the specific standards and compliance initiatives of each unique organization.

"At generationE Technologies, we are dedicated to helping customers improve business performance through more effective use of people, processes, and technology," said Casey Kindiger, generationE Technologies' CEO. "Micromuse's virtual CMDB technology is a perfect complement to our ITIL-based consulting practices, enabling us to deliver a more cost-effective CMDB solution in a fraction of the time of the big framework solutions. While traditional, centralized CMDB approaches present organizational, technical and budgetary hurdles, Micromuse's virtual CMDB capabilities allow us to collect data across existing, distributed systems in realtime, and present a custom view, on-demand."

Additionally, Micromuse's virtual CMDB solutions utilize Micromuse's realtime policy-based management to enable users to customize data, define user-specific search and data presentation capabilities, and tailor correlation and action/response based on changes in specific data within a data source. Using a simple Web-based interface, users can drive a query across multiple data sources, analyze the results and display this information in a way that the end-user can understand it and act accordingly. The solution also provides a simple means of translating data format from one source type to another, which allows organizations to leverage existing third-party applications and data stores to improve the return on those assets and eliminate organizational challenges associated with tools replacement.

"The CMDB plays a pivotal role in ITIL IT process enhancement initiatives, but for large and complex IT environments the barriers to success increase exponentially with a central CMDB approach -- not the least of which include the replacement of countless investments in existing data stores, traditional organizational hurdles, heavy service requirements and long implementation cycles," said Lloyd Carney, Micromuse's Chairman and CEO. "As a leading provider of service assurance solutions for the world's top financial services, service providers, and government agencies, our customers are at the forefront of adopting progressive and practical approaches for accelerating operational and business success. With the help of our partners, we have been awarded many recent high-profile customer wins as a direct result of increasing customer adoption of Micromuse's realtime virtual CMDB solutions."

Please click here to read a whitepaper about virtual CMDB: http://www.micromuse.com/downloads/pdf_lit/ Micromuse_virtual_CMDB_Solutions.pdf (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

About Micromuse

Micromuse Inc. (Nasdaq: MUSE) is the leading provider of ultra-scalable, realtime business and service assurance software solutions. The Netcool(R) software suite provides organizations with the assurance that their IT systems are supporting and driving profits 24 hours a day. Unlike traditional infrastructure management systems, Netcool solutions provide realtime end-to-end visibility and accurate troubleshooting from a business perspective. Such business intelligence allows organizations to respond to problems quickly, streamline workflow processes and improve business uptime. Micromuse customers include BT, Cable & Wireless, Deutsche Telekom, EarthLink, ITC DeltaCom, J.P. Morgan Chase, MCI, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Headquarters are located at 139 Townsend Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94107; (415) 538-9090. The Web site is at www.micromuse.com.