Ericsson Switches to Boole & Babbage MainView Solution to Improve Management of Parallel Sysplex Environment.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 22, 1999--

Telecommunications Leader Nixes Existing OS/390 Performance

Products in Favor of Automated Problem-solving, Single System Image

Support Within MainView

Boole & Babbage(R), Inc. (Nasdaq: BOOL), a leader in application service level management for distributed systems, today announced that Ericsson has chosen the MainView(R) solution to monitor and manage its high-volume Parallel Sysplex computing environment, replacing current products because of their lack of automation and consolidation capabilities. The Ericsson IT Services hub in Stockholm, Sweden processes upwards of 1 million transactions per day and provides 24x7 coverage for this leading global supplier of telecommunications equipment for wired and mobile communications in public and private networks. MainView will now maintain availability of the business-critical systems that process those application transactions for Ericsson's worldwide user base.

Ericsson's decision-making team selected MainView based on its sysplex-readiness, automated functionality, ease of use, and ability to handle its demanding workload spread across its IMS, CICS, and DB2 application subsystems. To Ericsson IT Services, MainView is like having an "automated systems programmer" for each subsystem it manages, freeing up man-time for systems' tuning and other tasks which genuinely require the skill of IT personnel.

"The main reason we switched to MainView is its ability to detect trouble conditions and automatically solve them before they become actual problems," said Kenth Jalsbo, IMS systems programmer at Ericsson. "The ability to have every system in our sysplex on one screen is also important to us. With MainView, we can easily move between our application subsystems and have all of the relevant information together automatically brought together, consolidating it for us in a single view."

Prior to the implementation of MainView, Ericsson found that using the previously installed products was a drain on staff resources. According to Ericsson's technical staff, the former products required them to constantly watch Statmon displays for warning indicators. MainView was an obvious solution to this, with its powerful exception-driven automation working to proactively detect and automatically correct problems that threaten systems performance and availability.

Another factor in Ericsson's move to MainView was the desire to manage the full scope of their S/390 enterprise while eliminating the multiple products and separate PC access that the previous products' architecture required. MainView provides much greater functionality from one integrated solution and displays all systems information on a standard 3270 display or a Windows-based desktop, based on the user's preference.

"By moving to MainView, Ericsson is achieving much greater problem-solving power and outage prevention while making better use of its staff expertise," said Chris O'Connell, senior director of product marketing at Boole & Babbage. "This replacement win underscores the built-in value that MainView delivers, in both traditional mainframe and Parallel Sysplex environments."

Ericsson's S/390 environment includes two Hitachi Skyline mainframes, two IBM R84s and an IBM RY5 running in a Parallel Sysplex configuration. The environment is running OS/390 1.3 with CICS, IMS and DB2 in Data Sharing mode. Total MIPS for the environment is approximately 2400.

About MainView

MainView provides application- and workload-focused performance monitoring, helping system programmers to control service levels. MainView online monitoring provides point-and-shoot navigation, concurrent multi-system access, and Single System Image for viewing data from multiple processing regions or a Parallel Sysplex as a single entity. MainView products for OS/390, CICS, IMS, DBCTL and DB2 are the only fully integrated systems management tools available that can concurrently support Parallel Sysplex and traditional mainframe environments.

About Ericsson

Ericsson is the leading provider in the new telecoms world, with communications solutions that combine telecom and datacom technologies with freedom of mobility for the user. With more than 100,000 employees in 140 countries, Ericsson simplifies communications for its customers - network operators, service providers, enterprises and consumers - the world over.

About Boole & Babbage

Boole & Babbage is a worldwide leader in application service level management for distributed systems. Its Enterprise Automation product lines provide a management solution for the entire IT enterprise that encompasses systems, applications, middleware, databases and Web technologies. The Boole & Babbage set of solutions is currently used by large manufacturing companies, domestic and international government agencies, the majority of the world's largest financial institutions, airlines, IT outsourcers and utilities to improve service levels and reduce IT management costs. Founded in 1967, Boole & Babbage is the oldest publicly traded software vendor in the systems management industry with revenues of $226 million in calendar 1998, 970 employees and 43 offices in 26 countries. Corporate headquarters are located in San Jose, California. For more information, visit us on the Web at www.boole.com, or call 800/544-2152.

Note to Editors: Boole & Babbage, Inc. is a Tivoli (NYSE: IBM) Premier Partner, a Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HWP) Premier Partner, an IBM (NYSE: IBM) BESTeam Member, and a Microsoft (Nasdaq: MFST) Solutions Developer.

Boole & Babbage and MainView are registered trademarks of Boole & Babbage, Inc. All other trademarks used herein are property of their respective owners.