Allen Systems Group, otherwise known as ASG Software Solutions, a technology company out of Florida, this week plans to introduce products it incorporated into its portfolio from a recent acquisition. The tools compete directly with the traffic analysis and performance management wares from Network General, NetQoS and NetScout.

ASG earlier this year acquired U.K.-based Chevin and re-branded the company’s network traffic protocol analyzer and end-user performance measurement software as ASG-TeVista Expert and ASG-TeVista Performance Manager, respectively.

Expert is a standard sniffer that monitors traffic and reads packets. The software can be run in an always-on mode to detect performance problems or can be used to troubleshoot specific issues. Performance Manager lets network managers synthesize user traffic and measure network latency and application performance.

The Performance Manager could alert staff to a performance problem, and IT managers could use the Expert software to troubleshoot the problem.

The tools complement ASG's Sentry SNMP-based software for network management. ASG-Sentry Network Manager provides threshold and trend monitoring, and a suite of Web-based management tools. It uses agent technology for Windows and Unix, which allows users to monitor their servers and applications from any Web browser.

The $170 million company has about 1,000 employees, 150 products, and one stockholder - founder, president and CEO Art Allen. ASG grows from acquisition and lands deals for its network and infrastructure management products at around $50,000.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.