Changes in IT Infrastructure Drive Demand for Performance Measurement & Planning.

CARY, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 7, 1998--

SAS Institute Ships 1,000th Copy of IT

Service Vision Software

SAS Institute Inc. announced today the one thousandth sale of IT Service Vision(tm) software, information-system-management software for the enterprise. Hewitt Associates, Lincolnshire, IL, licensed the one thousandth copy of IT Service Vision software, which gives IT professionals the ability to understand corporate-wide system performance by providing reporting and analysis of network, CPU, Web, and telecommunication systems, and the interactions among them.

IT Service Vision software automates the data consolidation and reporting process so that IT departments can respond quickly when their customers need to know what system traffic was like the previous week, or what trends to expect in the future.

According to Dan Kaberon, Hewitt Manager of Computer Resources, "We are confident that IT Service Vision will help us create a much more flexible capacity, performance and accounting data collection environment to fully exploit the last decade's improvements in SAS System technology. We plan to reduce the time needed to focus on our software, and allow our associates to focus on our business."

"Flexibility is a key issue for our customers now," said Christy Garrison, program director for IT Service Vision software at SAS Institute. "Many companies are just starting to feel the pain that comes from the explosion of Web, network, and telecommunications usage. IT Service Vision software lets database administrators, network analysts and capacity planners identify the long-term problems that come from increased usage and the hidden interactions of these systems. With IT Service Vision software, IT professionals can anticipate potential problems and evaluate alternatives ahead of time instead of facing angry business users."

Other customers that have licensed IT Service Vision software include Stelco in Canada, National Westminster Bank and Barclays Bank in the UK, Barmer Ersatzkasse and Henkel in Germany, Societa Reale Mutua Di Assicurazioni and Alcatel Italia in Italy, Shell Services International in the Netherlands, SWIFT in Belgium and Luxembourg, the Ministere du Budget in France, Storebrand in Norway, Skandia insurance in Sweden and the First National Bank of South Africa.

Barclays Bank, one of the UK's leading financial services groups, posting a 1997 operating profit of more than (pound)2.4 billion (nearly US$4 billion), turned to IT Service Vision to monitor and report on the vast amounts of data generated by the millions of transactions it executes every day. "We chose IT Service Vision for a number of reasons," said Dave Knight, a member of the Performance Assurance Team within Barclays' Retail Delivery Development. "First, SAS Institute is a recognized leader in performance and capacity reporting. Second, it delivered an integrated software set with the features we needed to build a reporting infrastructure rapidly. Third, SAS software meant we could develop a solution to predetermined budgets and have the ability to upgrade in a controlled way."

Long-time customer Stelco, a Canadian steel manufacturer with annual revenue of $3 billion, has used SAS software for computer performance management since 1995. Stelco relies on its computer systems for mission-critical applications, from customer and supplier interaction to manufacturing. Stelco's Glen Delvecchio, IS senior staff specialist, said, "If computers are not performing efficiently, we may have customers waiting for order information, steel processing mills waiting for scheduling information or trucks in our plants waiting for shipping information. Obviously, we can't afford that kind of deterioration in our system performance. IT Service Vision software helps us maintain the efficiency of our systems across platforms, from the enterprise server to UNIX."

IT Service Vision automates the data consolidation and reporting process so that Stelco's IS department can respond quickly to problems that can deteriorate performance. It also allows them to monitor system consumption to forecast what workload to expect in the future. Delvecchio said, "IT Service Vision software helps us determine whether we need to do some tuning on a particular system, or whether it's time to add more capacity."

IT Service Vision software is a specialized, packaged data mart and decision-support solution that draws on SAS Institute's experience as the number one provider of data warehouse and decision-support systems. Behind the scenes, performance data is collected from virtually all IT services within the organization. The data is then cleaned, transformed, and stored in a performance data warehouse that keeps track of historical data and automatically reduces or deletes unnecessary data over time. From an end-user perspective, IT Service Vision software provides a wide range of customizable reports that analyze a broad number of service-related issues ranging from CPU usage over a 24-hour period to the impact of increased Internet usage on traditional client/server systems. IT professionals can easily build custom reports from scratch, and then automatically display these reports on the Web, providing current, accurate information to practically anyone.

Since its debut five years ago, IT Service Vision (then called SAS/CPE software) has been breaking new ground as the world's first multiplatform performance management solution. SAS software has been used for more than 20 years as a tool to read raw performance data coming from mainframe systems. IT Service Vision software builds on that legacy of experience, offering the unique data input capability of SAS software coupled with metadata-driven warehousing technology. IT Service Vision software runs on all major platforms including mainframe, UNIX and Windows NT.

About Hewitt Associates

Hewitt Associates LLC is a global management consulting firm specializing in human resources solutions. Hewitt helps organizations succeed by getting the best from their people. Hewitt Associates works with organizations on their long-term business strategies to day-to-day administration and delivery of benefits, human resources, and compensation services, all striving toward creating an engaged and effective work force.

About SAS Institute

SAS Institute, one of the top 10 independent software vendors, is the leader in decision support and data warehousing, providing integrated enterprise information-delivery solutions. The Institute markets packaged business solutions for vertical industry and departmental applications, as well as an integrated suite of software and services that allow companies to transform the wide variety of data within their organizations into information that business users and researchers need to make better decisions. SAS software and services are used at more than 31,000 business, government, and university sites in over 120 countries. Founded in 1976, SAS Institute is the world's largest privately held software company with annual revenue of $750 million.

Please visit SAS Institute's Web site: http://www.sas.com SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. (R) indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.