Actional Collaborates with Cisco on Application-Oriented Networking; Customers Benefit from Visibility at Network Speed in Next Phase of Enterprise-Class SOA Management.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Actional Corporation, the leader in service-oriented architecture (SOA) management solutions, today announced that it is working with Cisco Systems, Inc. to integrate SOA management with the Cisco Application-Oriented Networking (AON) family of products. Through this integration, customers will gain the benefits of real time, end-to-end transaction-based visibility and control at network speed for true enterprise-class SOA management.

"AON is the first network-embedded, intelligent message routing system that enables applications and the network to work together as an integrated system," said Taf Anthias, General Manager and vice president of the Application-Oriented Networking Business Unit at Cisco. "AON is enhanced by Actional's capabilities in providing visibility and management control for large-scale SOA deployments."

Actional's weightless and non-intrusive Ghost Agent(TM) feeds AON-delivered application messages to Actional's Looking Glass(TM) console to provide unprecedented, end-to-end SOA visibility. Actional's AON-specific Ghost Agent has been tested and integrated by Cisco.

The Actional SOA management solution correlates application messages to the actual business transaction, such as buying a book online, and presents it in a simple, graphical interface with the Looking Glass console. Due to the dynamic nature of a mature SOA, organizations need this ability to monitor and manage every business transaction or process as it traverses through a heterogeneous SOA.

In very high traffic SOA environments, such as those in a large enterprise SOA, transaction-based analysis can require a significant amount of CPU capacity. With the introduction of Cisco's AON platform, customers can now perform business analysis at network speed without sacrificing CPU capacity from application hardware.

"With Cisco AON, we are moving to the next phase in enterprise-class SOA management," said Dan Foody, CTO of Actional. "Because we anticipated this high volume, enterprise-class requirement, Actional engineered its solutions to easily integrate with a network-embedded message routing system. We are excited to collaborate with Cisco as they premiere this next phase."

Enabling rapid triage of problems, Actional's dynamic and patented mapping capability provides users the ability to drill down into each step of a transaction as it occurs, providing unmatched business transparency. Utilizing this real-time, detailed information, Actional is able to enforce and reinforce security, set policy, monitor and manage service level agreements, and take immediate action to safeguard important transactions, such as those from platinum customers.

About Actional Corporation

As the leading provider of SOA management solutions, Actional addresses the specific challenges of securing, deploying and managing service-oriented environments, from early pilots to company-wide production. Using enterprise-scale technology, Actional provides end-to-end transaction and process visibility to enable accurate and complete SOA management. With over 40 customers, Actional is the choice of leading organizations around the world including Hong Kong Government, Partners Healthcare, Thomson Prometric, MCI, Telstra, Travelers, the U.S. government and more. Actional, which recently merged with Westbridge Technology, is a privately held company based in Mountain View, Calif. www.actional.com.