New Structure for Analysis Tool

ProactiveNet Inc. this week will continue its climb up the food chain of management applications with a new release of its ProactiveNet Web applications performance management software.

The Santa Clara, Calif., company, with a new underlying architecture for its tool that emphasizes correlation and root-cause analysis, is expanding the range of data sources it can tap in measuring and analyzing the performance of Web and client/ server applications. The self-learning tool takes a performance base-line measurement of all the attributes it learns about to determine a normal operating environment for each attribute.

ProactiveNet 5.1 adds an adapter for Mercury Interactive Corp.s Topaz that lets the tools correlation engine draw on URL and transaction measurement data gathered by Topaz.

Earlier this year, ProactiveNet added adapters for BMC Software Inc.s Patrol and Computer Associates International Inc.s Unicenter TNG.

ProactiveNet also shortly will add adapters, dubbed Variable Attribute Monitors, for IBMs Tivoli unit and NetIQ Corp. tools, ProactiveNet officials said.

Release 5.1 adds a SQL Query Monitor Wizard that integrates data from SQL DBMSes and an SNMP Trap Receiver that allows the tool to gather SNMP trap events from other third-party, SNMP-based tools.

By leveraging its "strong correlation engine" with more data from other vendors tools, ProactiveNet is evolving to compete more with the likes of a Mercury Interactive or Smarts Inc. than with existing competitors such as Dirig Software Inc. and Wily Technology Inc., said Meta Group Inc. analyst Corey Ferengul, in Chicago. "This is a signal that Web applications are going more mainstream and are not just a Web niche anymore in the enterprise," Ferengul said.

ProactiveNet also dressed up the new release, due this week, with the ability in its digital dashboard interface to graphically present real-time data in the form of gauges or pie charts. The Change Tracking feature lets change control events be integrated into the correlation and analysis of abnormalities in a customer environment.

ProactiveNet also increased the depth of the tools Web applications performance diagnostics, officials said. The tools Diagnostics Wizard now includes the top 10 Enterprise JavaBeans for IBMs WebSphere, top 10 servlets for WebSphere, top 10 processes by CPU for AIX and Linux, and more.