Compuware Vantage enhanced for increased enterprise ROI

In a drive to bolster local and global return on investment (ROI), Compuware has enhanced its Vantage suite to address the increasingly complex performance management requirements of today`s broad range of applications.

The suite`s NetworkVantage tool now enables IT professionals to identify and monitor Instant Messaging (IM) traffic and perform network security breach analysis while supporting multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) for faster traffic routing.

"Some enterprises see IM as an effective means of communication that reduces the load on e-mail systems," comments Dirk Loosen, product manager at Compuware SA. "However, there are also concerns that it is a pervasive application that can open security holes or add undue loads to expensive WAN links, ultimately causing delays to strategic applications and impacting an organisation`s ROI."

NetworkVantage manages the impact of IM by identifying both ends of the conversation and the amount of traffic it generates. The tool reports on traffic from leading IM vendors such as AOL, MSN, Yahoo and IBM.

In addition, NetworkVantage discovers traffic moved over the Internet by KaZaA, the most widely used purveyor of peer-to-peer file sharing on the Internet. Looking at security concerns, NetworkVantage`s historical collection of traffic data assists network security professionals with their breach analysis. The tool shows when unwanted traffic occurred, the source and destination of the offending traffic, and how much data was moved.

"NetworkVantage immediately sends alarms to network managers when a security breach has taken place," says Loosen.

Telecommunications providers are increasingly offering MPLS-based WANs to provide improved quality of service (QoS) for less cost. And as these networks extend to more enterprises, NetworkVantage enables the analysis and monitoring of application traffic transported by MPLS.

"Through NetworkVantage, network providers can prove their worth and validate that they can deliver against SLA (service level agreements) goals for throughput and performance," says Loosen.

Comments Robert Grant, business development manager for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young`s Network Performance Solutions team: "The real strength of Compuware`s tools is the ability to monitor and report applications` performance from two perspectives; first, the QoS supplied to the users of the application, and second, the underlying IT infrastructure that delivers the applications."