BlueCat Networks Pushes IP Address Management to New Heights.

Award-winning Proteus IPAM platform adds intelligent workflow, self-provisioning and IP reconciliation capabilities

TORONTO -- BlueCat Networks, the IPAM Intelligence Company[TM], today announced the release of its latest version of Proteus, the company's leading-edge IP Address Management (IPAM) platform. Furthering its commitment to product innovation, the next-generation solution now incorporates IPAM Workflow for change approval, IP Reconciliation for automated IP reclamation and a self provisioning system for user-driven IPAM requests.

"When creating the next version of our Proteus IPAM platform, we knew it was important to speak with customers and prospects to determine what features would be most important to them," said Richard Hyatt, CTO and co-founder, BlueCat Networks. "The overwhelming response we got was that they needed an intelligent platform that would reduce the daily administrative grind and allow their department to focus on larger technology initiatives. We took their recommendations seriously and added management tools that allow administrators to delegate control with the confidence that they are not exposing the company to any risks of mis-configuration or error."

Product Enhancement Highlights:

Workflow - Delegate with Confidence

Enterprise organizations have dozens of administrators who need access to IPAM in order to make changes. However, not every administrator has the level of knowledge and skill needed to guarantee that the data they enter is correct and accurate. Proteus Workflow introduces a change approval mechanism that introduces an approval process for any changes made by lower-level administrators. Senior administrators are automatically notified when a change request is made so that they can review and approve the change.

Workflow allows senior administrators to delegate daily IPAM tasks to more junior administrators with the confidence and knowledge that any mistake made can be caught and corrected prior to going live across the network. This gives senior administrators time to focus on more strategic initiatives while still ensuring that any errors are proactively caught before a network disruption can occur.

Self Provisioning - Reduce IP Management Costs

The latest version of Proteus now provides Self Provisioning capabilities, an extension of workflow, as described above. In many organizations, the brunt of daily IPAM administration involves fulfilling user requests for new IP addresses, networks and DNS hosts. These requests often account for the lion's share of the work in maintaining an IPAM system. Proteus now gives administrators the ability to automate user requests through a Self Provisioning portal or through direct tie-in to an organization's existing change request tools. This is accomplished using the combined features of Proteus' Next Available Network/IP Address, Workflow and the API. Users can make their own requests, have these automatically added to Proteus, and have an administrator notified in real-time who can approve the request. This drastically reduces the time and effort spent managing the IPAM system by helping to automate the single most demanding task.

IP Reconciliation - Intelligent IPAM Automation

For an IPAM solution to be effective, it must be kept up-to-date with what is occurring on the actual network. While DNS and DHCP integration help to achieve this, static IP address management can be a time consuming affair. Administrators need a way to validate the static IP data within Proteus to ensure that it is updated and accurate. IP Reconciliation builds on Proteus' existing Network Discovery feature to provide administrators with the tools needed to automate static IP address management.

Using IP Reconciliation, administrators can track actual IP usage on the network and compare this to the data within Proteus. This allows administrators to unearth reclaimable IPs, those no longer in use on the network, as well as discover IPs in use that have not been permitted by Proteus. These 'unknown' IP addresses pose potential security risks as they could be rogue systems added to the network without authorization. Using IP Reconciliation, administrators are able to reconcile the data within Proteus with the actual network to ensure the accuracy of all IP data.

Richard Hyatt adds that, "These powerful new capabilities continue to push the limits of what Proteus can do. Being close to our customers and understanding what they need to be effective is critical to the evolution of our products. This latest series of innovations confirms our commitment to bringing revolutionary IPAM solutions to market that set us head-and-shoulders above the competition."

Recent industry accolades include:

* Network World's Clear Choice Award Winner for IP Address Management;

* Deloitte Fast 50 - Fastest-Growing Technology Companies;

* Red Herring's 'Top 100' Tech Companies Finalist;

* 2008 Hot Companies Finalist by Security Info Product Guide;

* 2008 Hot Companies Finalist by Security Info Product Guide; CompTIA SoftwareCEO Enterprise Software Innovation Award Finalist;

Visit BlueCat at Interop Las Vegas (April 27 - May 2) in Booth # 2119 where they will be exhibiting the latest in IP Address Management solutions, and attend a presentation by CTO and co-founder Richard Hyatt on "Intelligent IP Address Management".

BlueCat Networks' IPAM Leadership

BlueCat Networks offers true enterprise-class IP address management platforms in the form of proven, secure, reliable and scalable network appliances. The Proteus Enterprise IPAM Platform gives administrators a superior IP address management solution that integrates IP inventory tracking and allocation, along with DNS and DHCP management. Administrators can now design networks with a simple conceptual view, then deploy and manage them across the entire organization. When managing DNS and DHCP, Proteus becomes "mission control", offering full command, control and customization of configurations from a centralized and secure web-based interface.

About BlueCat Networks

BlueCat Networks, the IPAM Intelligence Company[TM], is a profitable, rapidly growing leading provider of enterprise-class IP Address Management (IPAM) platforms and secure DNS / DHCP network administration appliances. Today, thousands of BlueCat's award-winning Proteus[TM] IPAM platforms and Adonis[TM] family of DNS/DHCP appliances have been successfully deployed to meet the rising IP management demands of small-medium enterprises, government, military, financial services, retail and manufacturing organizations worldwide. Find out why more Fortune companies chose BlueCat solutions to gain complete, centralized Command and Control of their IP networks at www.bluecatnetworks.com.