Concord Delivers Unique, Simplified Fault Management Software With eHealth Live Health - Fault Manager.

Business/Technology Editors

MARLBORO, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 19, 2002

Fault Manager accelerates mean-time-to-repair and increases

quality of service for improved IT productivity

Fault management (real-time notification of Internet infrastructure problems) has been around for years, but its complexity has often left many IT managers as frustrated with the software as the problems themselves. Concord Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: CCRD) has solved that problem with eHealth(TM) Live Health(TM) - Fault Manager, a new product that filters out thousands of unnecessary alarms IT managers typically face daily and gives them a single view of network, system, application and response problems.

With Fault Manager, eHealth becomes the first seamlessly integrated management software that combines fault and performance (historical trend analysis) in one platform that IT managers can use to identify, research, diagnose and fix problems quickly, reducing their overall mean-time-to-repair. Fault Manager receives and analyzes simple network management protocol (SNMP) traps from networks, systems and applications when problems arise, and notifies IT staff only about the important alarms. It evaluates each trap and determines if an alarm should be generated. If the problem is real, Fault Manager generates an alarm based on the severity of the problem and displays the alarm in Live Health's alarm browser and updates Live Health's Live Status(TM) display - a business technology map that allows users to quickly identify problems and establish a priority.

"Fault management products have typically been as much of the problem as the cure," said Jack Blaeser, Concord's president and CEO. "Imagine seeing hundreds or thousands of alarms in an hour zip past you on your computer screen and you're responsible for determining if the virtual private network (VPN) connecting your company to its most important customer is about to fail, and you don't know why. Fault Manager gives IT staff the information needed to spend time actually fixing problems, rather than searching for them. Incorporating Fault Manager into our product family provides the first fully integrated fault and performance management platform on the market."

Unlike other real-time fault management products, eHealth displays alarms resulting in both performance and faults across systems, network devices and applications in one display, allowing users to understand how these problems affect the entire service. eHealth compares alarms with historical polling information, which allows users to quickly drill down and understand the behavior of their Internet infrastructure, greatly reducing the research time in resolving issues. Fault Manager further simplifies IT administrators' jobs by eliminating the barrage of useless alarms generated by other technologies that send them on wild goose chases.

"With Fault Manager, Concord has added a new layer of intelligence to fault management," said Paul Bugala, an analyst with IDC. "Its integration with Concord's performance management system gives Fault Manager an understanding of normal device behavior that can significantly reduce mean-time-to-repair and make the whole fault process much more effective."

A picture is worth one problem solved

Fault Manager's integration with Live Health lets IT staff and business executives quickly pinpoint problems by business-level views (such as accounting, sales and the call center). For example, an IT manager at a nationwide retail chain can click on Live Health's Live Status diagram and drill down into different business units represented in the display. Doing so immediately shows IT managers how the infrastructure is performing for those business units and pinpoint problems that he needs to address.

Such is the case with ADP Dealer Services. A subsidiary of ADP, Inc. (NYSE: ADP), a global provider of computerized transaction processing. ADP Dealer Services uses Fault Manager to ensure its dealer customers don't experience any problems communicating with their customers, business partners and other dealers.

"Fault Manager lets us know immediately when there is a challenge that we need to address," said Dave Tibbils, ADP Dealer Services' program manager for network solutions. "Fault Manager provides a proactive solution that removes the lengthy investigation phase of troubleshooting and lets us get right to the heart of the problem so our customers remain connected to the sales and repair information they need to run their businesses."

Fault Manager automatically notifies IT managers of failures, configuration changes (such as added disk space on a server) and security breaches that affect infrastructure performance. The combination of Fault Manager with Concord's eHealth Suite of products gives organizations an end-to-end platform for pinpointing and addressing problems before they affect service.

About ADP Dealer Services

ADP Dealer Services provides integrated computing solutions to more than 16,000 automotive and truck dealers throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. ADP Dealer Services Group is the third largest business unit of ADP. ADP, with $7 billion in revenues and more than 500,000 clients, is one of the largest independent computing services firms in the world. More information on ADP Dealer Services is available via the Internet at www.Dealersuite.com.

About Concord Communications

Concord Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: CCRD) is the market leader in automating technology management of the Internet infrastructure. With its eHealth(TM) Suite of software products, Concord offers the only solution to combine real time information with historical context for integrated fault and performance management across systems, applications and networks. Only by successfully managing fault, performance and availability across all of these key areas can organizations truly ensure effective e-business. This end-to-end view provides the critical insights needed to power day-to-day business and e-commerce operations for some of today's most successful service providers and corporations worldwide. Concord is headquartered in Marlboro, Mass. For more information on Concord, call 1-800-851-8725 or visit Concord on the Web at www.concord.com.

Concord Communications, Inc., the Concord logo, eHealth, Live Health and Live Status are trademarks of Concord Communications, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.