MICROMUSE UNVEILS NETCOOL®/OMNIBUS™ VERSION 7

18.01.05

World’s Largest and Most Complex Network Infrastructures Rely on Netcool Solutions
To Provide Scalable, Realtime, Intelligent Foundation for IT Management


SAN FRANCISCO – Micromuse Inc. (Nasdaq: MUSE), the leading provider of ultra-scalable, realtime business and service assurance software, today announced version 7 of its flagship Netcool®/OMNIbus™ application. Netcool/OMNIbus v7 provides a strategic service assurance platform and the foundation for efficient operations management for many of the world’s largest and most complex IT infrastructures, including leading financial organizations, Federal and government institutions, and the top twenty global telecommunications companies as ranked by CY2003 revenue, Fortune Magazine, April 2003. Netcool/OMNIbus v7 delivers superior support for large and multi-region Netcool deployments; faster and more efficient data processing capabilities; increased ease of administration and streamlined user authentication.

“Celebrating ten years as a leading national Internet service provider, EarthLink continues to provide the products and services that best let individuals enjoy the Internet on their own terms, including tools such as EarthLink spamBlocker, Pop-Up Blockersm, Spyware Blocker and ScamBlocker™,” said Doug McClure, Senior Manager for Service and Technology Monitoring at EarthLink. “We have long relied on Netcool software to provide EarthLink with the industry’s most robust, scalable IT management solution. The enhancements provided in Netcool/OMNIbus v7 will enrich our network management as we continue to provide the highest quality of service possible to our customers and bring new services to market for years to come.”

“As EarthLink, one of the largest and oldest Internet Service Providers in the US, celebrates its ten year mark as a leading national ISP, we are continuing to add new services, new customers, new regions, and new products and will remain true to our award-winning emphasis on customer care,” said Doug McClure, Sr. Manager for Service and Technology Monitoring at EarthLink. “From the start, we have relied on Netcool software to provide EarthLink with the industry’s most robust, scalable IT management solution, With the enhancements provided in Netcool/OMNIbus v7, we are assured that we will be able to continue to support customers and bring new services to market for years to come.”
Greater event handling power in v7 allows IT operators to more efficiently access, manipulate, visualize, and report on the raw data. The new version also adds intelligent event reduction with advanced procedural language and database triggers to allow for batch processing and more complex data manipulations, which facilitate a solid foundation for advanced business service management and service quality management. Netcool/OMNIbus v7 includes features that increase enterprise’s and services provider’s ability to plan, deliver, deploy, and assess new services and products, as well as, enable them to gain compliance with accounting and IT management standards, such as Sarbanes Oxley, BASEL II and ITIL.
Enhancements delivered in Netcool/OMNIbus v7 include:
· Routing of events to multiple tables and ObjectServers - Reduces the load on the core of the Netcool/OMNIbus system and ensures tables are not overpopulated with inappropriate events.
· Dynamic configuration and administration - Configures ObjectServers while running to help reduce downtime.
· Advanced Profiling – Captures resource usage data for all connected clients and for individual trigger processes within the automation system to ensure systems are optimized.
· Connection based load balancing - Defines a set of display servers to which desktops can be connected.
· Authentication of Netcool/OMNIbus users against an LDAP repository - Adds to the security of the system by reducing user and password maintenance, and helps ensures the security of the corporate LDAP system.

The Netcool/OMNIbus application includes a library of off-the-shelf software modules that collect and consolidate fault information from more than 1,000 environments spanning security, voice and IP, DSL/broadband, wireless, switches and routers and enterprise management systems and applications. Netcool/OMNIbus is found at the heart of Netcool solutions, including those for Business Service Management, Service Quality Management, Security Management, and Advanced Correlation and Diagnosis – and provides IT operations teams with meaningful information about the state of their infrastructure and business. The Netcool suite’s renowned features such as scalability, breadth of coverage, adaptability, and rapid deployment have earned it recognition as the de facto standard in realtime fault management solutions.

“The Netcool/OMNIbus product has been selected as part of a total Netcool solution by more than 1,800 customers across the world to provide secure, scalable management backbones for large enterprises and service providers. Netcool/OMNIbus v7 retains our leadership position by increasing our industry-leading scalability, efficiency, and performance while providing additional functionality for multi-region service management and building-in more operational intelligence as standard,” said Craig Farrell, Chief Technology Officer at Micromuse. “These enhancements will enable Micromuse to enable its customers to realize even greater operational efficiencies and access business service management data efficiently and effectively.”

Netcool/OMNIbus v7 is available now. Pricing information and screen shots are available upon request. The software now also runs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS, ES, and WS 2.1, IBM AIX 5.2 and Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server & 2003 Server.

About Netcool
Micromuse's Netcool® software solutions provide businesses with the assurance that their applications and services are up and operating. By allowing our customers to see what's happening throughout the infrastructure in realtime, Netcool applications enable them to respond to problems before revenue-supporting services are affected.

Netcool applications install out-of-the-box, deploy rapidly and scale to the largest environments. Micromuse's flagship, Netcool/OMNIbus™ application, includes a library of off-the-shelf software modules that allow our customers to collect and consolidate information from more than 1,000 environments spanning applications, systems, voice and IP, cable/broadband, switches and routers, and enterprise management systems.

About Micromuse
Micromuse Inc. (Nasdaq: MUSE) is the leading provider of ultra-scalable, realtime business and service assurance software solutions. The Netcool® 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.