Apdex Alliance Forms Advisory Board; Six Application Performance Management Veterans Contribute Expertise.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- The Application Performance Index (Apdex) Alliance announced today the formation of an Advisory Board to gather input from leading application performance management practitioners. The six-member board includes experts in application performance planning as well as implementation. Apdex is a numerical measure of user satisfaction with the performance of enterprise applications.

The newly formed Apdex Advisory Board members include:

   Peter Christy, co-founder and principal analyst, Internet Research
   Group;
   Mike Pennacchi, president, Network Protocol Specialists;
   Jeff Sult, business technologies optimization practice,
   International Network Services (INS);
   Kerry Field, senior specialist, IT systems and performance
   management services, 3M;
   Michael Kennedy, vice president of performance engineering, JP
   Morgan Chase; and
   Doug McClure, senior manager of service and technology monitoring,
   EarthLink.

According to Apdex Alliance Founder Peter Sevcik, three of the six Advisory Board members are consultants with broad experience in application performance planning and the use of test and analysis tools, and three are senior IT executives in large corporations for which application performance is critical. "We formed the Advisory Board to bring the voice of the customer into the Apdex Alliance. The board members provide a wealth of practical knowledge and are enthusiastic about the value Apdex can bring to an enterprise."

Advisory Board member Jeff Sult of INS sees the Apdex standard as a milestone in information systems evaluation. "Apdex provides the industry a singular definition of the measurement and monitoring of end user response time. Unlike previous efforts which developed means of measuring response time from a troubleshooting perspective; Apdex supports monitoring of response time for compliance with business-defined service levels." Sult added that, "there is wide-spread support from the technology vendors for the Apdex standard and that support is growing."

The 15-member Apdex Alliance is an open movement to promote the Apdex standard. According to Sevcik, "Apdex Alliance members are delighted to welcome these six IT thought leaders to our Advisory Board. Their real-world experience will ensure that our standard accurately reflects the current and future needs for enterprises to manage and improve application performance."

The Alliance's commitment to collaboration and openness provides a new approach to resolving performance issues. Advisory Board member Peter Christy of NetsEdge Research Group stated, "I've spent much of the last decade pondering the question of how network delivered application performance could improve. I'm convinced that application performance is a critical factor in fully exploiting the network, with a lot of progress remaining."

Christy added, "Apdex is the most relevant organization trying to drive this issue forward in the broad industry. There are too many people who simply don't understand issues of performance. Apdex is a great step forward in terms of creating a structure for talking about performance and performance acceleration, and beginning a much broader dialog on the topic."

Apdex Alliance members include: Adlex, Akamai Technologies, Coradiant, Expand Networks, FineGround, Keynote Systems, NetForecast, Netli, NetQoS, Network Physics, Packeteer, Peribit Networks, Swan Labs, Symphoniq and WildPackets.

About The Apdex Alliance

The Apdex Alliance is a group of companies collaborating to define and promote an application performance metric called Apdex, a numerical measure of user satisfaction with the performance of enterprise applications, and reflects the effectiveness of IT investments in contributing to business objectives. Apdex is available to any organization seeking insight into their IT investments. Founded in 2004 by Peter Sevcik of NetForecast, the Alliance is headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia. Visit www.Apdex.org for more information.