Mercury Interactive Expands Open Architecture Alliance For Web Performance

Added: (Thu Nov 23 2000)

Pressbox (Press Release) - PRESS RELEASE

Mercury Interactive Expands Open Architecture Alliance For Web Performance
Monitoring With Six New Members

Alliance Members To Integrate Specialised e-Business Applications With Topaz

Camberley, UK - 23rd November, 2000 - Mercury Interactive, the world's
leading provider of Web performance management solutions, has announced six
new partners for its Open Architecture Alliance Program, formerly the Open
Test Architecture Alliance Program. The program has expanded to reflect the
overwhelming interest from partners and customers in the integration of Web
performance monitoring into the E-Business infrastructure, as well as
testing. The program now includes Topaz®, the Web performance monitoring
suite that features an open application programming interface (API) for
partners to build integrations with their own offerings.

As a result, customers will have end-to-end E-Business performance data
integrated into one view, and with the root cause analysis features in
Topaz, they can quickly drill down to pinpoint bottlenecks to keep their Web
sites running smoothly.

The six new alliance partners, including Ambeo, Auspice, Inc., HydraWEB
Technologies, Netuitive, Reef, and Persistence Software, will deploy
E-Business tools that can be integrated through open APIs in Topaz,
LoadRunner®, the market leading Web load testing solution, WinRunner® for
functional testing, and TestDirector® for test management. By integrating
their specialised e-business solutions with Topaz, OAP partners can offer
customers the latest E-Business technology - including data warehousing,
network reliability, traffic management, predictive performance management
and caching - with a single view of end-to-end performance and related
infrastructure data presented within Topaz.

"The Open Architecture Alliance Program is really an ecosystem that enables
partners to integrate their E-Business and enterprise tools with our Web
performance management solutions for rapid deployment to customers," said
Andy Crosby, European Field Market Manager for Mercury Interactive. "Our
partners add tremendous value by building these integrations, while
customers get the best in E-Business applications and performance monitoring
to run their businesses and satisfy their own customers."

Six New Partners Kick Off Expanded Alliance Program
The six new Open Architecture Alliance Program members deliver a variety of
E-Business infrastructure software solutions, and will be involved in joint
marketing efforts and integrating their applications with Mercury
Interactive products. New members include:

Ambeo - Ambeo is a leading vendor of query monitoring tools and services
that help companies manage their eBusiness performance. onwhy, Ambeo's new
e-service, delivers key performance metrics, on-line consulting to
customers, and a real time monitoring and alerting tool that will complement
Topaz's monitoring features for customers. www.ambeo.com

Auspice, Inc. - Auspice specialises in critical eBusiness and network
reliability solutions using both proprietary and third party technologies.
Working with Topaz, customers will be able to tie all of their Web
performance and network reliability information into one view, and quickly
drill down to the root cause of problems. www.auspiceinc.com

HydraWEB Technologies - HydraWEB is an eBusiness infrastructure company,
building Internet Traffic Management products that provide load balancing
for enhanced Web reliability. Integration with Topaz will allow customers to
quickly tie load balancing with overall Web performance in a single console.
www.hydraweb.com

Netuitive - Netuitive offers predictive eBusiness performance management
solutions that help companies foresee problems in their eBusiness
infrastructure before they happen. Netuitive enhances Topaz by providing
performance analysis solutions that dynamically learn normal system
performance and predict near term application blackouts and brownouts.
www.netuitive.com

Persistence Software - Persistence Software delivers caching technology and
products to speed business transactions and dynamic Web content for
increased scalability. Working with Topaz, customers will have an overall
view of Web performance and easily see the root cause of any problems.
www.persistence.com

Reef - Reef is a leading global Internet software company that provides
Internetware, an open, integrated, software-based foundation for managing
dynamic e-business. Companies of all sizes use Reef Internetware® to embrace
continuous change and maximise e-business efficiencies. www.reef.com
Expanding the Web Performance Management "Ecosystem" with Topaz
Topaz is a suite of Web performance monitoring solutions that provides an
early warning of performance degradation by correlating performance data
back to the root cause both inside and outside the firewall. Topaz can
shorten the time required to restore a Web site to its peak performance by
helping customers minimise the business impact of potential performance
problems and maintain the best possible user experience.

Mercury Interactive recently introduced a new non-intrusive, centrally
located, network monitoring solution, Topaz Prism, that captures and
analyses every single request made to a Web server from all users, from all
locations, all the time. Topaz also includes custom monitors that collect
web and application server information for Allaire, Ariba, BEA, Blue
Martini, Broadvision, IBM WebSphere and others.

By integrating performance data from their products with Topaz, OAP partners
can give customers one view of their infrastructure through the Topaz
console, and then drill down to the root cause of any problem and address it
before affecting the customer experience and revenue stream.

About Mercury Interactive
Mercury Interactive is the leading provider of Web performance management
solutions which help E-Businesses deliver application performance,
reliability and a positive user experience for competitive advantage. The
company's performance management products and hosted services are open and
integrated to best test and monitor business-critical Web applications. More
than 10,000 B2B and B2C E-Businesses, ISPs, ASPs, systems integrators, and
consultants use Mercury Interactive solutions. Mercury Interactive is
headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and has 40 offices Worldwide, with
its UK HQ in Camberley, Surrey. More at www.mercuryinteractive.co.uk.

###

LoadRunner, WinRunner, TestDirector and Topaz are registered trademarks of
Mercury Interactive Corporation, Sunnyvale, California. Product and company
names are used herein for identification purposes only, and may be
trademarks of their respective companies.

For further information:
Fiona Tutton
Mercury Interactive (UK) Ltd.
410 Frimley Business Park
Camberley
Surrey
GU16 7ST, UK
Tel: +44 1276 808200
Fax: +44 1276 29134
E-mail: ftutton@mercury-eur.com
Web site: www.mercuryinteractive.co.uk

Press enquiries:
Tony Bovill
Consort PR Consultants Ltd.
Berrybridge House
Devenish Road
Sunningdale
Berkshire
SL5 9SH, UK
Tel: +44 1344 626171
Fax: +44 1344 626612
E-mail: tony@consortpr.co.uk
Web site: www.consortpr.co.uk

NB: This release may be downloaded from Consort's Web site at:
www.consortpr.co.uk/mercury.htm