Entuity last week announced it had upgraded its flagship management software with features that will help corporate customers collect data on port usage, Cisco IP telephony applications and blade servers from IBM.

Entuity detailed new features in Version 4.0 of its Eye of the Storm (EYE) network management suite which features fault, performance, and inventory management. This release adds support for Cisco CallManager, the call-processing component of the Cisco IP Telephony software, making VoIP implementations and post-deployment optimization easier, the company says. Also, Version 4.0 enhances Eye's reporting capabilities, adding a new Port Availability Report to detail availability of managed ports. Also new is support for IBM BladeCenter.

Eye runs on Windows 2003, Sun Solaris and Red Hat Linux. The management console resides on a centralized server and uses a combination of distributed agents, automated discovery, event traps and polling algorithms to extract data from network, system and application sources. Through automated trending, Eye can "learn" behavior patterns across the network and establish what's normal and what deviates from normal - and generate alerts. The software integrates with other management systems such as HP's OpenView or Computer Associate's Unicenter, and its management console can be launched from within these other event management systems.

For Steve La, director of network services for California State University in Long Beach, Eye's ability to oversee and integrate data from other management products drove his decision to buy the product a little more than a year ago.

He is not using the most recent release at this point, but says Entuity's open framework eased his task of integrating multiple tools on the network. He says that in the past integrating multiple management tools caused performance problems on his network.

"We had issues integrating multiple product and sometimes they actually conflict with each other," La says. "We were looking for an integrated solution to help us basically oversee all these management devices. Everything is under one umbrella, which makes it easier."

Entuity competes most closely with Concord (now part of Computer Associates) and Micromuse.

Eye 4.0 is in beta testing. Entuity says the product will be available by the end of the month. Pricing starts at $50,000.