SMARTS management tool aims to protect service levels

ATLANTA - System Management Arts this week will release software that differs from other fault management tools by identifying the root causes of network problems across multiple managed domains and prioritizing fixes based on service-level agreements.

InCharge Service Assurance Manager, which will be introduced at SuperComm 2001 this week, is designed for large enterprise networks and service provider environments. The software is part of the company's InCharge family of fault management tools. Like other root-cause analysis tools, it's designed to help companies get to the bottom of network problems that are hard to pinpoint because they might affect multiple users, devices or applications.

Once loaded onto a server, the SMARTS software immediately begins an autodiscovery process on the network, using predefined models to seek out alarms, Management Information Base variables, SNMP event data, system log data or data from other network management software, such as Hewlett-Packard's OpenView or Tivoli's NetView. The software achieves automation through a combination of topological insight and information about each managed element, which is organized into network-independent object models, the company says.

InCharge Service Assurance Manager can graphically map out network interdependencies and correlate them so that companies can track whether service delivery levels to end users are being met. A centralized console displays the relationships between connected objects, such as devices, servers, applications and databases. SMARTS claims its software can track such information across individually managed network domains, whereas offerings from the likes of Micromuse and RiverSoft can only track such data within managed domains individually.

Beta version customer Debra Foller, director of operation systems and support for a financial industry extranet provider Radianz, says the company uses SMARTS InCharge technology as the "foundation of its fault management" and plans to use the Service Assurance Manager to perform root-cause analysis across several domains.

"It will let us consolidate 13 different root-cause analysis domains, see the interdependencies and tag a problem across the network," she says. "Today there is no other way to do it other than by a human, and using this saves us time and minimizes the potential for human error."

Founded in 1993, SMARTS has about 100 customers, mostly corporations, but about half of its revenue comes from its service provider accounts. In 1997, the company launched its InCharge suite, which includes the underlying CodeBook Correlation technology. Once installed on a user site, CodeBook matches alarms to its knowledge library, determining the root cause of network problems.

Pricing for InCharge Service Assurance Manager starts at $45,000. The product is scheduled to ship at the end of July.

SMARTS: www.smarts.com

Contact Staff Writer Denise Dubie

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