Enterprise data management vendor Apertus Technologies Inc has released an agent for its system network architecture (SNA) performance monitor which it’ll use to lure customers from the likes of Computer Associates and Big Blue. The Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based firm claims it’s the only vendor to offer a response time monitor (RTM) to pinpoint bottlenecks between mainframes and local area networks (LANS) running TCP/IP. Apertus says the agent will help it steal market share from Computer Associates International’s NetSpy and IBM Corp’s MPM. The new RTM device costs $750 per agent and enables SNA network analysts or large IBM mainframe shop administrators to clock end user response times on TCP/IP networks. The agent runs on Apertus’ VisionNet SNA distributed performance management system, which it acquired from Blueline Software Inc last year (CI No 2,694). Apertus product manager Ron Schuerkamp says administrators are flying blind with other performance monitors, which don’t let them see where problems on LANS occur, making it difficult to maintain service level agreement benchmarks. But he admits kit from CA and IBM – which hit the market four years before VisionNet launched in 1991- have larger installed bases. VisionNet has 300 sites and Schuerkamp wants to pick up several
hundred customers next year. Meanwhile, expect Apertus to release a PC graphical user interface for its MQView data analysis tool for IBM MQSeries systems next month.
