Zenprise debuts with Exchange management software

Start-up Zenprise last week released its first product, a management platform designed to let users automate the diagnosis and resolution of problems with Exchange.

The Zenprise 1.0 server software collects information from throughout Exchange's messaging environment, including global catalogs, domain controllers, DNS servers and Active Directory, to pinpoint the underlying cause of problems or to ferret out potential problems.

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Start-up Zenprise last week released its first product, a management platform designed to let users automate the diagnosis and resolution of problems with Exchange.

The Zenprise 1.0 server software collects information from throughout Exchange's messaging environment, including global catalogs, domain controllers, DNS servers and Active Directory, to pinpoint the underlying cause of problems or to ferret out potential problems.

Problem resolution

After those problems are deciphered, Zenprise specifies a resolution customized for the user's environment, including the names of servers and components that need repair.

It is that ability to dig out problems and automatically provide problem resolution that is drawing end users to investigate Zenprise.

"We saw some potential in having a system that could help us identify problems quicker," says Dan Rosman, director of IT for Jelly Belly Candy in Fairfield, Calif. "We immediately found an issue that was lurking out there when we installed the software."

The issue was linked to the company's migration from [Exchange] 5.5 to 2000, which was causing intermittent mailbox corruptions and challenging Rosman's IT staff to find its root cause. The problem that Zenprise found was that mailboxes in 2000 are required to be named with lowercase letters. The same was not true in Version 5.5.

"The real benefit that we hope to find is ongoing troubleshooting," Rosman says. "As an IT manager, I need to be focused on moving forward not firefighting all the time."

Zenprise officials say that is the role they hope to fill.

Algorithms of importance

The heart of the software is based on three algorithms that Zenprise is seeking patents for. The correlation algorithm takes symptoms and groups them together as being related. The causation algorithm includes a set of automated tests that are run to determine the root cause of a problem. The correction algorithm provides detailed step-by-step resolution instructions.

Zenprise 1.0 also features a symptoms database, which runs on SQL Server 2000 and 2003, that houses all known Exchange symptoms and their associated causes. The database works much like anti-virus software in that it is updated regularly using data gleaned from the local system, from other Zenprise customers.

The software runs in two modes: agent based and agentless.

The Zenprise software competes with like products from EMC, Micromuse and Lucid8.

Zenprise also integrates with monitoring products such as Microsoft Operations Manager, NetIQ's AppManager, HP OpenView, Computer Associates Unicenter and IBM Tivoli.

Zenprise costs $15 per user, per year.

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