Cramer Goes 'Beyond Discovery' With Latest Product Release; Product Breaks New Ground in Discovery & Reconciliation.

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

VIENNA, Va. & BATH, U.K.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 30, 2002

Cramer Systems today announced the general availability of the SyncEngine, a ground-breaking product that enables service providers to synchronize network, circuit and service data from multiple sources.

Until now, many carriers have pinned their hopes on autodiscovery systems to maintain the accuracy of inventory, but information about end-to-end services and circuits is beyond their ability to determine. Even EAI and bespoke integration projects can overlook the intelligence required to reconcile and initiate corrective action where discrepancies are found.

The result is a "Swiss cheese" resource model with gaping holes leading to provisioning failures and hit-or-miss service assurance.

Cramer CTO Don Gibson explained the importance of the new product. "As networks and services have become more complex, carriers have recognized the need to have a better inventory. The problem today is that the information required to sustain such an inventory doesn't exist only in the network. That means you have to have some higher-level means of combining it, working out what is right or wrong, and fixing it - automatically. That's what SyncEngine provides, and it means big time savings for carriers."

SyncEngine combines data from multiple sources, such as autodiscovery tools, network and element management systems, and even other inventories. It builds all of this data into a unified model of the network, services and circuits, and a configurable rules base determines where the discrepancies are and how to correct them - either with design changes or field engineering.

Corrective actions are driven through the rest of the Cramer application set.

Steve Plain, VP Product Management added: "The fact that this is a wholly productized solution will be of interest to carriers. Previous efforts to address this problem have typically been bespoke and high-risk, and expensive."

SyncEngine has a J2EE architecture, offering the scalability demanded by carriers with larger networks and substantial amounts of day-to-day change.

SyncEngine is part of the Cramer4 suite of telecoms inventory management and provisioning automation software.

About Cramer Systems

Cramer Systems is the leading provider of inventory management and provisioning automation solutions for the global telecommunications industry. Cramer's products help service providers lower costs and reduce time to market by automating processes that rely on a detailed knowledge of network inventory, capacity and service configuration information.

In February 2002, Cramer was awarded the coveted OSS Excellence Award for "Best Inventory Management System" by Billing World and OSS Today, and the European Technology Forum named Cramer the UK's "Hottest Technology Prospect" in March 2002.

Cramer's nearly 40 customers include leading European fixed and wireless operators, such as BT, O2, Cable and Wireless, KPN Telecom and KPN Mobile. Cramer is located in Bath, UK. North American headquarters are in Vienna, VA. For more information, visit www.cramer.com.

Cramer and the Cramer logo, whether or not appearing with the trademark symbol, are trademarks of Cramer Systems Limited.