ST. CHARLES, IL--(Marketwire - June 16, 2010) - Monolith Software (www.monolith-software.com), developer of the industry's most versatile technology management solution, today announced new network performance management features that enable service providers and large IT organizations to deliver superior service levels while lowering technology management costs and streamlining operational efficiency. The new enhancements represent Monolith Software's continued commitment to delivering on the promise of industry-leading, fully integrated software to address the needs of IT Operations. The version 3.5 release contains more than 28 new features, with more than 50 percent being driven by customer requests.
Chris Schaft, president of MKAdvantage, relies on Monolith's software to implement Business Service Management solutions for his customer base. MKAdvantage delivers software to clients that accurately depict the real-time status performance of the services being utilized by his clients and their customers. Schaft views the enhanced ability to capture and store device configuration and the IT dashboard, heads-up display capabilities as big parts of the 3.5 release. The ability to discover, map and correlate beyond just Layers 2 and 3 i.e. Layers 1 through 7, are what Schaft calls, "the next big thing."
However, it's the software's openness that sets Monolith apart from other, more expensive options. Schaft elaborates more: "There is no waiting for development to monitor new devices such as routers, switches and servers as well as third-party applications such as Service-Now, Microsoft CRM and VMware vCenter. Device monitoring certification from the software developer is old school, and doesn't cut it. Our customers do not want to hear, 'we can't do that right now' -- it's the wrong answer! Monolith has an open and homogenous platform; the technology learning curve for integrating new modules is lower because there are no closed, proprietary platforms to deal with -- we are only limited by our imagination."
New Monolith Software Features
The following are just some of the new network management software features and application performance management enhancements made available in the version 3.5 release.
Topology Configuration Agent
The new Topology Configuration Agent (TCA) breaks new ground within the industry. The TCA can not only collect, store and compare device configurations from technology assets, but also use configuration data to automatically populate Monolith's Hierarchy Storage Engine (HSE). This is a significant advancement in the world of dynamic topology mapping and Root Cause Analysis (RCA). Relying solely upon SNMP to query routing or MAC address tables does not help when dealing with Layer 1 (e.g. DACS) or Layer 4+ (e.g. application monitoring). Understanding connectivity is paramount when performing RCA. Monolith's TCA makes this entirely possible.
IT Dashboard Mashups
Monolith's IT Dashboard Engine now supports mashup capabilities that can be used to create custom heads-up displays, presenting critical operational information in one consolidated view. The key technology component driving this new feature is Monolith's Base URL Widget, allowing organizations to display any data content within a dashboard view. The new mashup features complement the existing dashboard capabilities of displaying the real-time status of event, metric, topology and SLM data.
Enhanced Agent-based Monitoring
Monolith's new Host Agent is an onboard agent that provides a point-of-presence for metric, topology and configuration collection. Any command that can be run on a server or any script that can run against the server to collect information can now be packaged, scheduled and run from Monolith's administration interface. The enhanced agent-based monitoring enables any of the aforementioned data to be used within Monolith's Metric Manager or Topology Manager Modules.
Adding Intelligence to Application Performance Management
Monolith has now added its Abnormal Behavior Threshold Engine (ABTE) to the Metric Manager list of capabilities. The ABTE pinpoints abnormal network or application behavior and allows customers to define configurable confidence bands to identify key performance impacting issues. This feature is perfect for automatically identifying behavior that is outside the realm of the expected (e.g. odd behavior).
Radiant Communications, Canada's leading supplier of broadband solutions for businesses and a Monolith customer since 2008, is using the new network management software enhancements with impressive results. James Martin, Radiant's director of technology strategy, explains, "Monolith's IT dashboard features have always provided us with excellent flexibility to pull events and metric data into a single view. Now with the new Base URL Widget, we can add in other items not natively stored in Monolith from our OSS system."
Using the new IT dashboard Base URL Widget, Radiant can now customize Web pages and display trouble ticket numbers associated with device/location problems in a consolidated view. Displaying trouble tickets in a more controlled environment enables the Managed Service Provider's clients to quickly drill down through the tickets to see events and updates.
"Monolith's solution is not as rigid as traditional customer portals using IT dashboards, so this is really just the tip of the iceberg of what can be done with the URL Widget," Martin added.
"Today, service providers and enterprise organizations are focusing more on the services the IT infrastructure provides. Being able to provide a unified technology view of all of the components and how they interact is key to delivering always on services," said Jeff Parker, president and CEO of Monolith Software. "Monolith's new enhancements help enable superior service delivery by being flexible enough to discover directly or tap into OSS systems, to build the associative relationships between technology components. The fact that we do this in a fully customizable Web 2.0 software solution built on HTML5 ensures you are future proof."
Product Availability
Version 3.5 of Monolith's platform is available today direct from Monolith Software. For more information please phone, 1.800.376.8308 or email info@monolith-software.com.
For more information on Monolith Software's network management software / application performance management software, please view the following white paper: A Phased Approach for Building a Next Generation Network Operations Center.
About Monolith Software
Monolith Software offers the industry's most flexible IT management software designed to increase the operational efficiencies of network operations centers (NOCs) while delivering a fully integrated, open architecture platform for managing fault, availability and performance management.
Contact Information:
For more information, contact:
Joline Biancavilla
BridgeView Marketing
joline@bridgeviewmarketing.com
603-570-7539
Matt Saarima
Monolith Software
msaarima@monolith-software.com
312-957-6470
