Candle Announces System Management Support for New Versions of IBM's MQSeries; Increases Leadership Position with Enhanced MQSeries Management Functionality.

SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 26, 1999--Candle Corporation, the leading independent developer and supplier of Solutions for Networked Businesses, Tuesday announced day-one support of new versions of IBM's MQSeries messaging middleware software.

Additionally, Candle announced significant enhancements to Candle Command Center (CCC) Admin Pac for MQSeries and CCC Management Pac for MQSeries, its middleware systems management solutions. Supporting MQSeries across all major platforms, Candle's solutions provide customers with entry-level and advanced MQSeries systems management capabilities.

CCC Admin Pac ships free in the box with every MQSeries license. This solution helps organizations build MQSeries networks more quickly and provides strong monitoring capabilities for IBM's industry-leading message-oriented middleware (MOM) environment. CCC Management Pac offers extended management capabilities for MQSeries, providing a comprehensive upgrade path from CCC Admin Pac.

"This move underscores our position as the leader in the MQSeries systems management arena," said Dave Powell, vice president, Application Solutions, Candle. "Our day-one support of new versions of IBM's MQSeries across all major platforms allows customers to optimize their new middleware networks right out of the box."

Day-One Platform Support for New Versions of MQSeries

Both CCC Admin Pac and CCC Management Pac provide day-one support for new versions of MQSeries running on all major operating systems, including: MQSeries version 2.1 on OS/390 and MQSeries version 5.1 on Microsoft Windows NT, OS/2, AIX, Sun Solaris and HP-UX. In addition, Candle will continue to support new versions of MQSeries for the AS/400 platform.

CCC Management Pac Version 250

The new release of CCC Management Pac, version 250, enhances Candle's position in the MQSeries systems management arena, delivering a host of new functionality, including advanced automation, span & scope of control for MQSeries networks, and integration with Candle's MQSecure solution.

"Span & scope of control" allows organizations to assign personnel-differentiated network change privileges, ensuring that only authorized users can make changes to the MQSeries network. Further, this function provides an audit trail, allowing the organization to track changes according to user ID, time/date, action and parameters.

Candle is delivering significant upgrades to CCC for MQSeries and CCC for MQSeries Configuration, two important components of CCC Management Pac. In addition to span & scope of control, the new version of CCC Management Pac delivers a host of new automation features, including: -0-

--   Workflow Automation - Simplifies management, allowing users to
     select from a list of options and automatically execute desired
     workflow;
--   Agent Availability - Increases availability by allowing users to
     define parameters to detect when a system comes on line or goes
     off line. It also allows users to define automated responses to
     manage system state changes; and
--   Take Action and User-Defined Action - Provides single point of
     management, allowing users to build and execute any system or
     MQSeries command from within CCC Management Pac.

In addition, new integration with Candle's MQSecure product provides automatic security alerts for internal and external vulnerability. CCC Management Pac automatically alerts the administrator when a user tampers with a message. MQSecure then re-routes these tampered messages to a special queue and Management Pac monitors the size of this MQSecure problem queue.

Pricing

Pricing for the CCC Management Pac for distributed platforms starts at $500 and pricing for mainframe platforms starts at $10,000.

About Candle Corporation

Candle, of Santa Monica, is the leading independent developer and supplier of Solutions for Networked Businesses. To help customers connect, integrate and manage their applications, Candle offers products, solutions and services in the areas of application integration, application and response-time management, messaging middleware, and performance and availability management.

Candle, a worldwide reseller of MQSeries, offers organizations the largest and most comprehensive portfolio of middleware solutions and services in the industry. Candle also provides a broad range of MQSeries consulting and professional services.

Candle has more MQSeries-certified consultants than any organization outside IBM. In addition, the company offers Roma, an E-Business Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) solution.

For more information on Candle Corporation and CCC Management Pac, visit www.candle.com, or call 800/843-3970.

Note to Editors: IBM and MQSeries are registered trademarks of IBM Corp. Microsoft and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. Candle, the Candle logo, Solutions for Networked Businesses, Candle Command Center, CCC, MQSecure and Roma are trademarks or registered trademarks of Candle Corporation. Other products mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.