02/28/2006

Entuity™, Inc., today announced the release of Eye of the Storm® (EYE) version 4.5, its network management suite providing automated, continual discovery of network devices and topology with integrated fault and performance management. The new version is able to discover and control firewalls, servers, hosts, and VPN gateways, delivering increased reach, depth, and control which will benefit both enterprises and system integrators through increased network efficiency and, ultimately, ROI.

Businesses have to maintain control over their constantly-changing networks, while optimizing capacity and performance, by efficiently managing and delivering network services. The network has evolved from being merely a static infrastructure to being a vital source of mission-critical business processes and services that are dynamically changing on a daily basis. To meet this need, Entuity has further broadened EYE’s distinctive strength in automated inventory and topology discovery by adding support for new systems.

EYE 4.5 now includes the capability to discover and place under management firewall devices, VPN Gateway devices, as well as heterogeneous servers and hosts. By capturing explicit system and device details in the integrated EYE CMDB, version 4.5 offers a trusted source of extended IT network asset information to other applications participating in an end-to-end management solution. The release also includes enhancements for customizable application access control to ensure security and compliance to company standards.

“With EYE 4.5, Entuity continues to extend its technical lead in the area of automated discovery and continuous rediscovery of network inventory and topology,” said Bill Tracy, vice president of product strategy for Entuity. “By populating the EYE CMDB with this information, presenting it to network managers, and making it available to other management applications, we continue to be the most trusted source for network asset information for our customers and partners.”

Firewall Support EYE’s management reach extends further across the network in version 4.5 with a new module supporting firewalls, starting with support for Nokia Firewall devices. Following automated discovery, complete inventory, and performance details are populated into the EYE CMDB. Dynamic utilization of resources including memory, disk and CPU are monitored and recorded to provide actionable information for capacity planning, hardware/software upgrade or replacement, software/firmware patching, and overall better maintenance.

VPN Gateway Support The addition of a VPN Gateway module likewise extends the reach of EYE 4.5, starting with support for Shiva VPN Gateways. The added functionality in this module provides visibility and management to an additional critical device in a company’s secure network environment. The dynamic and transient VPN tunnel behavior is monitored and recorded in the EYE CMDB, including the number of tunnels in use and the maximum number of tunnels, to ensure availability and adequate capacity. Real-time alerts enable smooth operation and prevent anomalies from interrupting remote users or offices.

System Support Extending EYE’s management beyond pure network devices, EYE 4.5 includes a new module to actively monitor systems – hosts or servers – for the most critical parameters needed for capacity planning and troubleshooting the infrastructure carrying business applications. The EYE 4.5 Server Monitoring module captures details including CPU usage, total memory, available memory, number of users, number of processes, installed applications, logical volumes, and substantial allocation details. User-configurable thresholds control event generation on high CPU utilization, low memory, and low disk space to enable preemptive maintenance. Captured in the EYE CMDB, server details enable users to isolate software with known vulnerabilities, produce patch lists, identify servers in need of patching, monitor trends in disk usage, etc. to rapidly isolate root cause problems and performance anomalies, and to prevent one-time incidents from becoming recurring problems.

Application Access and Compliance Security for application access and compliance are a topical concern to many organizations, particularly with applications that run in distributed environments. EYE 4.5 gives network operations greater control to the functionality available or visible to various EYE users. User access control within this version has been enhanced to provide multiple group and privilege levels to distinct application functionality. For a distributed environment with a local manager, administrative authority can be selectively delegated to provide adequate access without compromising overall security. Administrative control is also extended in EYE 4.5 to include visibility and control over active EYE client sessions and a messaging utility to inform users of important information and events.

"We manage a suite of network services deployed on about 100 servers scattered across our campus and state,” said Peter Bartz, manager of network operations at University of Minnesota. “The server management added in EYE 4.5 will help us meet the challenge of effectively integrating basic server and service monitoring into our existing Eye of the Storm management framework."