Heroix helps take guesswork out of app mgmt.

Heroix this week updated its management software to include new features that could help customers more quickly detect and fix application performance problems.

The key component within Heroix eQ Management Suite 2.0 is an upgraded version of the company’s graphical user interface, Solutions Studio. With Solutions Studio, customers can now use wizards and templates to set up customized application-specific monitoring and control. In the past, the Web console only allowed users to view information.

The suite includes intelligent agents that run on servers, databases and other devices in an application’s trail and can discover and provide details about operational and performance data. That data is fed to a management console that runs on Unix, Linux, Windows and OpenVMS. An SQL database stores the performance data the agents collect.

Additional features in 2.0 include an extended Web Management Console letting customers manage systems from any Heroix eQ supported platform. A new Web reporting portal consolidates reports and graphs from multiple monitored resources.

David Gregg, network server administrator at the Bridgestone/Firestone tire production factory in Oklahoma City, Okla., says the Solutions Studio features allow him to change preset rules on the fly and ensure they were updated via eQ’s Web console. He and Michael Gillespie, manager of tech support and communications, use Heroix eQ to help them spot performance problems across the plant’s 400 Microsoft Windows-based workstations and 30 Windows NT and 2000 servers. Users of RoboMon (Heroix eQ’s former name) for three years and Version 1.5 of Heroix eQ for the past year, Gregg and Gillespie are now beta testing Version 2.0.

“So far the feature I like best is the Solutions Studio. It lets me modify rules from my desktop and see the results of my changes almost immediately,” Gregg says. For example, if Gregg knows a particular server is going to be using more CPU than usual at a particular time, he can go into the Solutions Studio, change the preset utilization rule for that specific server, and ultimately avoid getting a lot of unnecessary broken threshold alerts and events. “You can see the events stop instantly on the Web interface,” he says.

Gillespie adds that he chose Heroix over competitors such as NetIQ because of the software’s ability to monitor across multiple platforms. Heroix eQ software monitors specific performance metrics in databases, operating systems, messaging applications, Web and e-commerce applications, such as Veritas NetBackup, Apache 2.0, Oracle 9in, Windows Server 2003 and CIM 7.

Jean-Pierre Garbani, an analyst with Giga Information Group, agrees. He says by simplifying the creation of rules through a graphical interface, Heroix eQ provides the capability to add new rules based on experience and to continuously update the software’s automation features.

Heroix eQ Management Suite 2.0 costs about $600 per server.