Epilogue Technology Allies with Frontier Software to Offer New RMON and RMON2 OEM Products; Licensing Agreement Results in New Liaison Line of Source Code Software for Remote Monitoring Development.

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 3, 1997--At ComNet '97 this week, Epilogue Technology Corporation, an Integrated Systems company based in Sunnyvale, Calif., will unveil a new line of RMON source code products for OEMs seeking off-the-shelf development technology for RMON and RMON2. These new Liaison MiniRMON, RMON, and RMON2 products are the direct result of a new licensing agreement signed last week with Frontier Software, Inc., of Chelmsford, Mass., the leading supplier of RMON-based distributed diagnostic products.

Under the terms of the licensing agreement between Epilogue Technology and Frontier Software, Epilogue will license Frontier's MiniRMON (Statistics, History, Alarm, and Event), RMON1, and RMON2 as core technologies that will serve as the basis for its new line of OEM products, Liaison, Liaison Lite, and Liaison II. The Liaison product line from Epilogue will be offered to computer hardware and software manufacturers, chip makers, and other OEMs as a portable development source code package to create integrated RMON and RMON2 network management solutions.

"By licensing RMON technology from the industry leader, Epilogue can offer our OEM customers state-of-the-standard RMON integration technology," said David Preston, president and chief operating officer for Epilogue Technology. "As network management standards continue to evolve, we are finding more applications for SNMP and RMON. For example, embedding RMON agents in network silicon will bring network management to new technologies such as ATM and Fast Ethernet. By using RMON technology licensed from Frontier Software as the core for our new Liaison products, we will be able to offer customers RMON and RMON2 technology that is compact, readily portable, and highly interoperable."

"We are delighted that Epilogue has selected Frontier's technology as the basis for its new RMON source code products," said Narendra Popat, president and co-founder of Frontier Software. "Epilogue is the leading OEM supplier of SNMP in the market, and Frontier is the leader in RMON-based diagnostic technology. By pooling our technological resources, we will be able to offer network management developers superior RMON integration solutions and unparalleled support."

Liaison: New RMON Solutions for OEMs

Epilogue Technology will release its initial line of Liaison RMON source code products during the first quarter of 1997. There will be three products in the Liaison family:

Liaison will be offered as a source code solution written in ANSI C that allows OEMs to create MIBs that implement full support for RFC 1513 for Token Ring and RFC 1757 for Ethernet which defines RMON1. Liaison supports all nine RMON groups, including Statistics, Matrix, History, Filter, Alarm, Packet Capture, Host, Event, Host Top N, and a tenth group for Token Ring. By using Frontier Software technology to develop Liaison, the RMON solution also supports monitoring through all seven network layers and 11 different protocol stacks.

Liaison Lite is a smaller implementation of RMON which supports the four groups in RMON1 that present vital signs and early warning signals: Statistics, History, Alarm, and Events, called MiniRMON. Since RMON data gathering can consume large amounts of host device resources, many OEM suppliers, particularly embedded solutions developers, are looking for remote monitoring solutions that support only those groups that are most commonly used. Liaison Lite is fully compliant with current IETF standards and can be implemented as an SNMP MIB.

Liaison II adds support for RMON2, which supports Network and Application Layer monitoring. Features include address mapping, protocol distribution, and Application Layer conversation lists. All products in the Liaison product line are written in ANSI C to make them highly portable, and are designed to interoperate with Epilogue's Envoy SNMP and Attachi and Attachi Plus TCP/IP and UDP protocol stacks. They are also fully compatible with any third-party, standards-compliant SNMP and protocol stack implementation. And since Epilogue's Liaison products are developed using Frontier Software's RMON technology, they are also fully compatible with Frontier's NETscout Probe and NETscout Manager applications, as well as other standards-compatible RMON probes.

Liaison will carry a licensing fee of $100,000; Liaison Lite can be licensed for $50,000; and Liaison II for $175,000. Licensing fees include 90 days of unlimited service and support. Annual support, which includes technical support, software upgrades, and other services, can be purchased for 15 percent of licensing fees.

About Epilogue Technology Corporation

Epilogue Technology specializes in developing and marketing standards-based network management and protocol software products and support services to computer OEMs and computer systems manufacturers. Since it was founded in 1985, Epilogue has licensed its products to more than 300 companies worldwide including AT&T, Cisco Systems, IBM, Network General Corporation, Northern Telecom, and Siemens, among others. Epilogue customers have shipped more than two million network devices containing Epilogue Technology products. Epilogue Technology Corporation is located at 201 Moffett Park Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089; telephone: [phone]; fax: [phone], www.epilogue.com.

About Frontier Software, Inc.

Frontier Software is the industry leader in offering powerful, proactive solutions for enabling network operations to deliver optimal application response time and maximum quality of service. Frontier's award-winning NETscout Probes and NETscout Manager applications are based on EnterpriseRMON, a compliant superset of RMON1 and RMON2. The NETscout family provides unique solutions beyond RMON2 by supporting all LAN/WAN topologies including switched LANs, VLANs and Frame Relay. In addition, NETscout systems provide end-to-end standard or custom application monitoring for distributed enterprise networks. Frontier Software is headquartered at 321 Billerica Road, Chelmsford, MA 01824, [phone]; fax: [phone]. Company news and product-service information are available on Frontier's Web site: www.frontier.com. -0-

Note to Editors: Liaison is a trademark of Epilogue Technology Corporation. NETscout and EnterpriseRMON are trademarks of Frontier Software, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Epilogue Technology Corporation

Dave Preston, 408/542-1754

www.epilogue.com

or

Frontier Software

Aline Kaplan, 508/244-4000 ext. 1424

www.frontier.com

or

Woolf Media Relations, Inc.

Tom Woolf, 415/508-1554

www.woolfmedia.com