RiverSoft Delivers 'Interventionless' Network Management.

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 10, 1999--

Company's OpenRiver Network Management Software is the

First Network Management Software to Deliver Accurate

Root Cause And Impact Analysis Of IP Network Faults,

Resulting in Major Operational Cost Savings

RiverSoft, Inc. today announced its OpenRiver product, the industry's first "interventionless" network management software. RiverSoft's OpenRiver automatically and accurately maps the true connectivity of the network and presents network managers with the isolated problem and its network impact, providing interventionless network management with a nearly zero cost of ownership, fault isolation, and maintenance. It supports VLANs, Layer2 and Layer3 Switching and Routing, Frame Relay and ATM (LANE & PNNI), and can provide its data to third-party management systems, including HP OpenView, Tivoli, and CA-UniCenter.

"For network managers, OpenRiver takes the tedium out of isolating and analyzing network faults, nearly eliminating the need to hunt manually through incoherent lists of events to attempt to identify a recognizable pattern of faults," said Phil Tee, Chief Technology Officer of RiverSoft. "Because the product accurately maps network topography, network problems are isolated for the operator and the their impact on the network is presented as an affected node connectivity diagram. Network managers can fix the problems while their service desk staff calls the customer - proactively about service outages."

One of the early users of OpenRiver is global consulting firm Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc., who have been using the product as a point solution for their network operations group in charge of remote access services. Booz, Allen has deployed OpenRiver in conjunction with HP OpenView, Concord Communications' Network Health and Netcool from Micromuse, because the product provides complementary services.

"When we first installed OpenRiver four months ago, I was pessimistic that it could do what they claimed," said Geoff Chambers, network management architect in the Enterprise Management Group at Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc. in McLean, VA. "But it installed quickly and discovered our network in one-and-a-half hours, giving a true topology of the network, including the Layer 3 switching. When we started testing it with Shiva LANRover devices like the ones in our remote access group, for example, it instantly isolated the faults and determined the root cause of the problems each time. We got really excited, because we've never been able to do this before. OpenRiver not only finds the root cause, but also gives us the data we need for an impact analysis of our network. The accuracy of the product's network mapping makes it a unique tool that can have a profound impact on the way we manage our network."

Other early customers of OpenRiver include major Internet service providers, telecommunications and data service providers and enterprise organizations, in both the U.S. and the U.K.

"RiverSoft's unique technology will enable OpenRiver to allow carriers as well as enterprise IT managers to gain the benefits of more automated network management," said John Morency, Vice President of Network Solutions at Renaissance Worldwide, Inc. "OpenRiver's uniqueness is a strong focus on network problem correlation combined with dynamic knowledge of the state of the network topology. Without question, RiverSoft truly understands how to most effectively apply management correlation technology. We expect this new technology to play a major role in advancing the cost effectiveness of IP network management in the future."

A revolutionary network management system, OpenRiver offers the lowest cost of ownership of any network management product. In addition, it is scalable and capable of supporting both service provider and enterprise networks.

"This is the first network management product that can address a mass market, with a value proposition for both carrier and corporate networks great and small," said Mike Silvey, vice president of marketing at RiverSoft. "OpenRiver can be installed in minutes and deliver value in only a few hours - with an almost zero cost of ownership and a measurable reduction in network operations costs."

Added Phil Tee, "OpenRiver is the first and only product available that really delivers accurate root cause, and the operational impact on the network of that root cause, because it understands the true connectivity of the network. For telecommunications and IT managers, this product is essential, because it cuts the cost of problem isolation, encourages customer service proactivity, and addresses network managers' biggest headache: configuration management."

The core technology of OpenRiver is RiverSoft's proprietary topography engine, which automatically discovers the connectivity of a network, from diverse technologies like ATM, IP Routing and VLAN switching allowing true root cause and operational impact to be derived. OpenRiver can also 'feed' its data into third-party management systems such as HP OpenView, Tivoli, CA-Unicenter, Micromuse Netcool and Command/Post. Once mapping is complete, the system automatically manages the equipment within its domain, alerting operators with root cause events and an operational impact map showing the affected services and nodes. OpenRiver even rediscovers and manages network devices that have been reconfigured, alerting operations about the configuration change, and remapping the network connectivity to reflect the change. OpenRiver uses smart polling to ensure the integrity of the monitored network. If a root cause is isolated, polling of the impacted devices is suspended until the problem is resolved. Upon resolution, the impacted devices are proactively rechecked to reestablish the network integrity. The whole configuration management process is thus greatly simplified.

The product is available immediately for UNIX systems, with Windows NT and other platforms due to be available later this year. Pricing begins at $7,500, depending upon network configuration.

About RiverSoft

RiverSoft was formed in 1997, by the ex-CTO of Micromuse (NASDAQ:MUSE) and software designer for Boole & Babbage (NASDAQ:BOOL), and is the only provider of interventionless network management tools. Its OpenRiver(TM) product automatically discovers network topology, isolates network faults and delivers to network operators root cause analysis with operational impact information. It supports diverse network technologies, including IP LANs/VLANs, Frame Relay, and ATM. RiverSoft may be contacted toll free at 1-877-OPENRIVER, emailed at [e-mail]. RiverSoft's offices are located at: RiverSoft, 237 Park Avenue, 9th Floor, New York NY 10017. RiverSoft is on the Web at www.riversoft.com.

OpenRiver is a registered trademark of RiverSoft. All other trademarks and registered trademarks in this document are the properties of their respective owners.