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Apparent Networks Redefines Network Monitoring With Its Unique Performance-Centric System; AppCritical Customers Gain Real-Time, End-to-End View of Network Performance and Its Impact on Critical Applications

Posted on: Monday, 1 May 2006, 15:00 CDT

Apparent Networks Inc. today unveiled a network performance system that bridges the gap left by traditional network tools unable to keep pace with applications that are now dependent on the quality and consistency of the network. A critical component to every enterprise, the network is the catalyst for user productivity, revenue generation and communications. Its effectiveness is evaluated based on performance -- availability is a given.

With the tools in the NOC still focusing on availability and fault management, network engineers remain reactive to alerts and complaints. These solutions have failed to evolve to what is needed for delivering critical business applications to a diverse set of end users. Yet network managers now have more responsibility for applications than ever before. According to Yankee Group, nearly 70% of network managers said they are responsible for isolating the cause of application performance issues.

AppCritical's automated intelligence, which continually evaluates the network's ability to support the enterprise's business processes, eliminates the ongoing battle of application performance complaints and end-user angst caused by ever-changing networks.

Contrary to traditional systems, AppCritical takes network management out of a device-centric auditing view and introduces a path and application perspective which provides engineers with a course of action rather than just historical data. Its holistic approach links network performance to quality of user experience for both data and voice. Functioning in real-time, its patented testing mechanism rapidly evaluates hundreds to thousands of live paths for user-defined threshold violations. Without involvement of the network engineer, it escalates testing until it either identifies and diagnoses a problem and its location or dismisses it.

"Most networks were not originally designed to support today's complex mix of data, voice and video traffic. All of today's distributed applications are, more than ever, dependent upon the accurate and timely arrival of information," said Frank Dzubeck, president, Communications Network Architects, Inc. "Application and network performance must now be managed using a set of predetermined and agreed-upon quality of experience metrics rather than pure SLA metrics. AppCritical is an initial thrust at providing this next generation level of performance intelligence."

"Network engineers operate in a volatile environment because the technologies they are forced to rely upon typically monitor traffic and provide alerts in relation to outages. Tracking outages is child's play compared to identifying the source of network brownouts or intermittent performance problems in real time," says Irfhan Rajani, Apparent Networks president and CEO. "To keep pace in a converged environment, they need a solution that can do the investigative work for them, so they can spend their valuable time fixing the problems -- not finding them. With AppCritical's awareness of the infrastructure's impact on application performance, engineers can proactively fix problems before end users are impacted."

AppCritical has already made an impact with its beta customers including Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), The Boeing Company, Province of BC and Texas A&M University.

"AppCritical is one of the ways we improve our ability to manage client networks," says Jimmy Brown, VP of Network Services at Affiliated Computer Services (ACS). "With this technology, we can now identify the exact cause and location of weaknesses within our clients' networks before they become problems, resulting in higher network availability, better network performance, and improved service quality. By leveraging evolving technologies such as AppCritical, ACS continues to position itself as a leader in the IT outsourcing market."

"AppareNet already multiplies my engineers' effectiveness, by not needing pre-deployed sensors and with its excellent advice on detected anomalies," Willis Marti, Associate Director for Networking, Computing & Information Services, Texas A&M University. "AppCritical lets us move into a truly proactive mode. The ability to monitor entire paths without disrupting traffic is key to providing good, cost-effective service."

"This increased knowledge and awareness of how the path is performing allows our network management staff to concentrate on optimizing performance and being proactive about guaranteeing path quality to our users," said Todd Johnstone, Manager of Boeing LabNet. "Our ability to observe and identify path quality leads to an increased probability that our critical demos, tests and experiments will perform to our requirements."

"Traditional methods of managing data networks are simply not enough in today's complex environments," states Martin Webb, Manager of Data Network Operations for the Province of BC. "With an ever increasing focus on providing Citizen facing services through self service applications, the Province's dependency on the data network has become greater than ever before. As well, with the integration of new technologies such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), the need to know how the network is performing has become a critical factor in meeting end-user expectations. AppCritical is providing the Province with the necessary information to tackle problems before they impact the end users by continuously monitoring the network and providing notification when predefined Service Quality Definitions (SQD) are exceeded."

AppCritical is available immediately directly from Apparent Networks and through its reseller partner channel. It is well suited for large enterprises that rely on their network and managed service providers that have responsibility for network performance.

Apparent Networks, Inc. develops and markets software that provides a unique approach to improving application performance by addressing and diagnosing live converged networks as part of pre-deployment assessment, break-fix troubleshoot and continuous network health checks. AppareNet(TM) and AppCritical(TM) are agent-free network diagnostic, assessment and measurement solutions, which help IT managers and professional services providers quickly identify and resolve network bottlenecks and faults that drain resources and prevent applications from performing at their peak. Customers include ACS, IBM, Symantec, Network Appliance, McData, TELUS, DHL Systems, the United States Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, Bank of New York and Electronic Arts. The privately held company has offices in Seattle, WA and Vancouver, Canada. For more information, visit www.apparentnetworks.com.

Source: Business Wire

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