FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AutoNOC 2.5 Debuts with Network Crawler
Technology to Help Automate Management

ATLANTA, GA, June 28, 2005 - The network just broke and the boss is getting that pulsating blood vessel on his forehead again. The phone starts ringing and your pager goes off. Panic is starting to set in and the clock is ticking. Will you find the problem in time? If you were running AutoNOC 2.5 you would have already closed the ticket.

How so? Well the latest release of AutoNOC monitors pretty close to everything happening on your network even as your network changes.

We are thrilled to announce the general availability of AutoNOC 2.5. This is the most comprehensive, reliable, feature rich release of the AutoNOC integrated network operations platform to date. The core improvements enhance AutoNOC in many ways to expand opportunities for automation, increase the network scalability, while at the same time delivering a plethora of capabilities designed to save significant labor.

Some of the highlights:

• Network Crawler Delivers Labor Savings
  AutoNOC 2.5 now includes a background network update crawler which analyzes each device in the operations model looking for changes, new components, modified configurations, etc. As it detects these the crawler will automatically make modifications to the model design. This feature saves incredible amounts of labor adjusting the operations model with respect to network design changes. Have no worries when you add that new interface, AutoNOC will find it automatically and start monitoring it without any user intervention.

• Targeted Network Discovery
  The reality of today's networks is that perfection in network discovery is more of a "Holy Grail" than a reality. For years we thought through the case uses of discovery and the result of this is the new Network object. Some people like to build a static hand-crafted model of their network and some people like to have everything automatically mapped. For production networks, the mix is often somewhere in between. The Network object allows the user to build a custom manual static network and also to create targeted "discovery zones" that populate folders with certain sets of objects.

• Improved Scalability for Managing Bigger Networks
  AutoNOC 2.5 unveils a major re-design of the operations core designed to handle much larger networks. The software uses less RAM per probe, indexes have been moved to disk, memory has been trimmed, more efficient handling of pre-allocated data improved, and many other things.

• MP Thread Scaler for High Density Managed Devices
  High density devices (such as large routers and switches with many hundreds of interfaces) require sophisticated parallel data acquisition techniques to obtain reliable high resolution operations profiles. AutoNOC's new and improved 2.5 kernel implements a truly parallel multi-processing data acquisition core capable of performing 10s of thousands of parallel SNMP walks simultaneously on entire networks at a time. In test cases, AutoNOC has been able to acquire data from single devices with 10,000 probes at as high as every 15 seconds, per device. The thread scaler allows the user to adjust how many parallel acquisition threads are available to the data core allowing fast and faster data acquisition dependent on how much CPU power the user wishes to put to the task. Note that by default AutoNOC is configured to do no thread scaling, this option can be adjusted in the acquisition service (and then the software should be restarted).

• 64-Bit Support for Terabyte Size Historical Databases
  The 2.5 release includes vast improvements to the RDX and RDB data store capabilities including full 64-bit files, continuous linked access, reduced memory usage, and many other internal improvements.

• Automated Restart and Automated Qualify Feedback
  Delivering maximum reliability is a key requirement in today's production data centers. This latest release includes the ability to automatically restart the AutoNOC core in the event of a system issue. Also included is an automated ability for AutoNOC to send call stack and other debugging information to support in the event of such a failure. Don't worry, this capability off by default and must manually be turned on by the user.

• External Graph Links and Portal Construction Kit
  Users can now link to specific graphs inside AutoNOC and use them as a live part of external web portals. The same is true for a variety of other little graphing widgets and other things. This is very useful when some things should be available to external users.

• PAM (Linux) and Windows User Authentication
  No need to create user accounts in AutoNOC by hand anymore. By default AutoNOC will authenticate against PAM on Linux and Windows and create users automatically. AutoNOC does not retain any password information, so dropping the user from PAM or Windows means they will no longer be able to logon to AutoNOC.

• Performance Optimizations and Bug Fixes
  Additionally, the 2.5 core includes vast performance improvements, bug fixes, adjustments, and other capabilities. More than 256 tracked issues have been handled in this release.

AutoNOC 2.5 can be installed by clicking on Configure | Portal Setup | Check for Updates or by downloading and installing the software manually.

About AutoNOC LLC

AutoNOC LLC was organized in Atlanta, Georgia in 1999 by commercial software veteran Kyle Lussier to develop and market the AutoNOC core network operations platform. AutoNOC LLC is first to market with a cost effective, robust, fully integrated, Web based solution for integrated network operations. For more information, visit AutoNOC’s Web site at http://www.AutoNOC.com.

Specific Issues Resolved in this Release
Below lists the specific issues resolved in this release.