Concord Communications Inc. wants to put itself at the center of performance management and problem management convergence with the latest release of its eHealth suite of tools.
The Marlboro, Mass., company next week will put its mark on the trend when it introduces eHealth 5.0. The latest release of the suite adds a component called Live Health-Fault Manager.
“Performance management vendors are looking at how to accelerate the perception that they can do root cause [analysis] or know how to manage problems,” said Dennis Drogseth, vice president at Enterprise Management Associates Inc., in Portsmouth, N.H.
The new Live Health-Fault Manager provides an integrated view through its Live Status display of network, system and application performance along with fault issues. Live Status creates a business topology map that shows all the IT elements that deliver applications to departments or geographical areas and displays their statuses, according to Concord officials.
For example, it can show all Notes end users and the LAN switches they connect to, and the applications they use. It can also give a status display for SAP AG, Oracle Corp. end users, an IP virtual private network service or managed frame relay service, said Concord officials.
In addition, the release adds an enhanced application response agent.
The agent allows users to look at business transactions on an e-commerce site from the end users perspective. It adds simplified customization, allowing users to record, edit and publish agents unique to a business site.
Although the combination brings Concord into closer competition with major fault management vendors such as Hewlett-Packard Co., EMAs Drogseth doesnt see Concord “treading on [HPs] toes.”
The performance management vendor is offering a more cohesive alternative to what had been a “highly fragmented market,” according to Zeus Kerravala, director of networks and broadband access at The Yankee Group, in Boston.
“Concord recognized clients dont want to buy five different packages,” Kerravala said.
The latest release of eHealth is due by months end. Pricing starts at $10,000.