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Enure Networks Upgrades Its Home Network Management Software for Service Providers to Deliver Total Automation and Self Healing in Setup, Management and Maintenance

Posted on: Monday, 8 October 2007, 09:00 CDT

Enure Networks, creators of award-winning home network management software, today announced it has upgraded its flagship product for service providers to achieve unprecedented levels of automation of their customer's home network environments. ServiceShield™ version 1.6 software automates the entire lifecycle of the home network -- setup, change management and maintenance -- providing the first complete solution for solving home network problems immediately, with no human intervention, before the user becomes aware of a fault. Such a capability results in probably the single largest advancement made in home networking simplification. Bringing such clarity to an otherwise uncontrollable home environment provides several strong advantages. ServiceShield greatly reduces risks in rolling out next generation services, the costs of maintaining existing services, and ensures users enjoy a smooth, high-value experience -- thus creating a service provider competitive edge.

ServiceShield works as part of a complete product suite that provides service providers with everything needed to meet the home network support challenge. It is comprised of two main components. First, the ServiceShield Installation Wizard and Software client v. 1.6 is used to install broadband services in the home network and to constantly monitor and self heal home networks. Second, the True Information & Control (TIC)™ Server, residing in the service provider premises is used by service providers for reporting, remote management and assisted help.

ServiceShield 1.6 is especially designed to answer the changing needs of today's broadband markets. With Quality of Experience (QoE) becoming the single most important competitive advantage, a service provider's success depends on being able to combine excellent QoE with the profitable rollout and maintenance of current and next generation services. To date, achieving excellence in all these areas simultaneously has proven near impossible because the fundamental challenge -- supporting the home network -- has been out of the reach of service providers. ServiceShield resides in the user's home network and makes sure the network is set-up and operates as required, providing complete self healing automation and maintenance. Problems are addressed and corrected at their onset, before a user experiences a symptom, thus avoiding the need to involve technical support. This has an immense positive impact on reducing a call center's load and increasing customer satisfaction.

This month, ServiceShield was also recognized as a finalist by the International Engineering Consortium (IEC) for its InfoVision awards, in the category of Broadband Appliances, Devices, and Home Networking. Enure Networks is exhibiting at the IEC's Broadband World Forum in Berlin, October 8-11, 2007.

"The IEC's InfoVision Awards honor innovations that help advance the information and communications technologies (ICT) industry. We're pleased to recognize Enure Networks as an InfoVision finalist and we're looking forward to seeing the ServiceShield demonstration on this year's BBWF Europe exhibition floor!" IEC President John Janowiak commented.

Upgraded Simple and Effective Installation Wizard

ServiceShield now includes an advanced installation wizard designed to make installation and activation of broadband services easy for the service provider's technicians and for users. The installation wizard automatically records a basic home network healthy state configuration and identifies and solves problems at the initial setup. The wizard ensures a user-friendly, intuitive and easy installation process with a high first-time success rate, by employing dynamic problem identification and auto correction rules during installation, reducing the number of customer service calls made during the tricky setup phase. It uses a simple, clear flow-control mechanism with the most up to date visual tools to aid users in identifying devices and best facilitate the installation process.

Automatic Logical Problem Maintenance and Self Healing

At the heart of ServiceShield lies Enure's patented HCBM (Health Criteria Based Maintenance)™ technology. HCBM is the unique technology that enables the Enure solution to solve home network problems seamlessly, immediately and without user intervention. In order to solve home network problems effectively, it is crucial to immediately track any change in the home network environment and to identify deterministically if this change caused a failure and if so, to immediately fix it. Any particular change can cause a failure in one home network while in another home network it causes no problem. Enure's technology can intelligently discern between each to maintain connectivity. Moreover, there is no finite list of "legal" configurations that can be applied to all home networks. HCBM has the ability to identify all possible configuration permutations with which a specific home network can properly function. This enables the Enure solution to immediately and deterministically fix any home network failure without the user or customer service representative (CSR) becoming aware of a problem or having to take any action.

"Some home network management solutions provide very limited self healing in that they can only do so for one device or one application, such as the automatic resetting of a router," said David Sayag, Founder and VP of Marketing for Enure Networks. "Enure's ServiceShield is far different than this in that it provides total self healing of the entire environment regardless of topology. Furthermore, it is intelligent enough to understand when one device or application has impacted another and then actually correct problems in their proper order to accurately and automatically resolve issues without the user experiencing connectivity symptoms or needing to intervene."

Physical Connectivity Maintenance

ServiceShield constantly analyzes all physical service connections and alerts the user when a hardware problem has occurred, such as a disconnected cable. The alert includes a visual illustration of the exact location of the problem, enabling the user to easily reconnect the device. Other problem examples include devices that have been turned off, disconnected network cards, malfunctioning hardware, etc. -- all detected and alerted about by ServiceShield.

Advanced Tools for Advanced Users

ServiceShield provides a set of advanced tools for sophisticated users who want to customize and personalize their home network environment. They include (but are not limited to) a network monitoring module that provides a view of all network components and configurations; NAT management that enables users to open/close ports, regardless of the gateway/modem; wireless network management interface that lists available wireless networks, enabling on-demand connection; a history and statistics log that lists all home network failures, fixes, disconnects, and more.

Pricing, Availability and Complementing Products

ServiceShield version 1.6 is available immediately to service providers in North America and Europe. Pricing varies by configuration and is specifically suited to each service provider, using Enure's Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Return On Investment (ROI) models, allowing positive return and minimum risk right from the start. This clear ROI achieved, is enabled by ServiceShield and completed by the TIC System. TIC is a central system residing at the service provider's premises. TIC provides remote control and monitoring of each ServiceShield instance installed in home networks; an activation and provisioning module; customer service support tools for CSRs facilitating remote assisted help both on and off line; a marketing and sales reporting module and many more features. With these features, TIC complements ServiceShield and together the products bring top value to service providers as well as a high quality broadband services experience in terms of availability and performance to end users. Enure's solutions are deployed and are also under trial with several tier one service providers in North America and Europe.

About Enure Networks

Enure Networks provides the world's first and award-winning patented home network management software solution capable of completely and intelligently automating the entire broadband home network environment. This includes automating set up, security, configuration, diagnosis and the self healing of connectivity problems in real time. The solution operates without the need for user or service provider intervention. This level of intelligent automaton in Enure's products dramatically reduces technical support inquires, operations and costs for telecommunications and cable broadband and triple play service providers. Enure Networks is a venture-backed company with funding from Elron Electronic Industries Ltd. (www.elron.com)(NASDAQ:ELRN)(TASE:ELRN) and Carmel Ventures (www.carmelventures.com). The company is based in Israel with sales offices in the United States and Europe. More information can be found online at www.enure.com.

Note: references to company and/or product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owner.

Source: Business Wire

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