FOR INTERNET AND INTRANET SERVER MANAGEMENT

ACE/Internet Manager is the latest announcement from Diversified Data Resources, Inc. (DDR) in the continuing development and deployment of the ACE(Automated Console Expert) Enterprise Systems Automation & Management tool. ACE/Internet provides automated monitoring and remote management of UNIX, Windows/NT, Windows/95 and OS/2-based Internet servers from a central, secure location. ACE/Internet is based upon DDR's Automated Console Expert (ACE), which is the industry leading automation product for ACP/TPF systems, used by some of the largest companies in the travel, reservation, banking, credit card authorization and check clearing business. ACE is widely used to provide the best possible system availability for mission-critical applications to many of the largest Fortune 500 companies in the world. ACE also supports IBM systems using MVS, VM, VSE, OS/400, AIX and many other operating systems. ACE/Internet Manager is the latest member of the proven ACE family of monitoring and automation products.

Here is a list of just some of the benefits that you can obtain with ACE/Internet Manager:

Prodigy Inc. of New York, is playing a major role in the continued development of ACE/Internet. "With over 100 Internet servers of all types in operation, maintaining 100% continuous availability is a must," said Jim Rickert, Director of Operations at Prodigy Inc. "Before our customers implemented ACE/Internet, they faced major difficulties in monitoring the health of their wide variety of Internet/Intranet servers. It was almost impossible to monitor everything that was being made accessible to the end users over the Internet/Intranet, and access as well as usage continues to grow at a tremendous rate. Administrators need a simple and yet powerful solution that enables them to monitor their Web, Mail and FTP servers as well as user written applications, from one location, quickly and easily, without program changes or the need to hire expensive consultants . Our users did not want to program their way to a solution and needed something in production now, not next year. Only ACE/Internet met their demanding needs. Since ACE was originally designed for large customers with mission critical systems, it is the logical choice to look at ACE/Internet for automating all aspects of business Internet/Intranet servers. ACE/Internet can be in production, monitoring and alerting, in the time it takes to install most other systems. Today ACE/Internet is successfully monitoring and automating Prodigy's Web server farm of almost a hundred, a number that will grow to a few hundred within the next year. The ACE/Internet workstation monitors every message on every Internet server, and still has plenty of horse-power to regularly check that every home page they host is up and available to the Internet at large."

ACE/Internet can monitor and control hundreds of Internet or Intranet servers from a single workstation. ACE/Internet can monitor a server passively, actively or both together. Passive monitoring is performed by monitoring the output from a server. Active monitoring is performed over permanent or dynamically acquired Telnet sessions. All server output is monitored by the ACE/Internet automation engine for the presence of predefined "target" messages or conditions. When a target is detected, ACE/Internet initiates a predefined automation procedure that can perform a wide range of actions in response to the target condition. These include rule based functions such as automatic recovery of the Web server hardware, operating system, applications software, fallback to another server, paging support personnel, using our Notification Server to call and speak to someone on the phone, as well as provide DTMF signal functions for the dialed user to remotely control automation functions.

A unique new ACE feature, called the Internet Server Verification consists primarily of a table, that contains the addresses or names of all the Internet/Intranet servers to be periodically checked, the services to be checked (web, mail, ftp, etc.) as well as how frequently you want them to be checked. ACE will then connect to those servers, simulating a client, and report the results back to the ACE console with a message. ACE will check and report response times, availability, correct data being returned, effective execution of CGI scripts and much more! Using ACE's powerful automation database, automation procedures are initiated to react to the message. This facility is very flexible, allowing the user to check hundreds of servers at the same time, and also to check different services within the same physical server (for example, Web server, Web page, Mail server, FTP server), and also to check non-standard services that are proprietary to your intranet. All of this can be accomplished without writing one line of code!

Additionally, the ACE automation package utilizes a client/server architecture, and the latest client implementation is a JAVA application, allowing customers to monitor and control their enterprise automation from any browser that supports JAVA. This client can be Windows NT, Windows 95, UNIX, OS/2, Mac and others. Effectively, this allows the system administrators to completely control their multiple Web platforms and get centralized alerts from one workstation. This will allow users to control ACE (and their enterprise) via their Internet/Intranet Web browser of choice that has support for JAVA.

The heart of the ACE/Internet automation engine is the same high performance automation database that is included with the ACE automation product. Using a GUI interface to the database, users can easily define automation targets and their corresponding actions. When a targeted message is detected, ACE/Internet automatically performs the actions that are predefined on the database. The most common database action is to start an ACE automation procedure, which is capable of performing a wide range of interactions with the server. A procedure can automatically respond to messages, issue commands to correct error conditions, collect diagnostic information, or any other task that an operator might perform.

Automation procedures are written in either XPROCs (ACE''s integrated, English language automation procedures) REXX or "C" . They can be as small as a one line reply to a target message, or large enough to perform complex command-response interactions between multiple Internet servers and/or other host systems. Procedures can actively monitor server resources such as CPU, DASD and cache utilization, error and deferred queue''s, and application status. When resource utilization levels exceed defined thresholds, actions can be taken automatically to correct the problem and/or notify an operator. ACE/Internet can alert operators by audio/voice alerts using a PC sound card, by console messages, by paging support personnel as well as sending an e-mail message. With ACE/Internet automation, Internet server problems can be detected and corrected without operator intervention. Complete activity and problem log reporting is provided "Industry analysts and customers agree, today's administrators demand visibility and operational control of the enterprise Internet servers. Traditionally, the only solution options have been proprietary, standards and agent-based solutions. On closer inspection these are complex, lengthy to implement, and often cost-prohibitive", said George Faucher, vice-president of Marketing at DDR. "In contrast, no complex agent deployment is necessary with ACE/Internet. ACE/Internet can be up and running immediately and inexpensively, as opposed to other possible solutions that require expensive hardware and agent deployment on all servers to be monitored," George Faucher concluded. ACE/Internet is an OS/2 application that runs on any Pentium class workstation.

The ACE client can be any Web browser that supports JAVA. ACE/Internet is a complete software solution; no special boards, cables, or agent software are required. ACE/Internet is scaleable; it can be configured to support from 1 to 1,000 servers. ACE/Internet provides comprehensive security for user-logon and individual command entries. ACE/Internet also provides a handy simulator facility to allow off-line development and testing of automation procedures.

ACE/Internet can be used with the ACE (Automated Console Expert) Enterprise system to create a fully integrated Enterprise Automation solution that supports the automated inter-operation of Internet, UNIX, MVS, VM, VSE, TPF, DEC, OS/400, Tandem and many other host consoles. ACE/Internet can also generate SNMP alerts to inter-operate with leading enterprise systems management software including HP/OpenView, CA-Unicenter, and IBM's SystemView for AIX. ACE/Internet pricing starts at $9,900 and is based upon installation size and configuration. Purchase options include permanent license, rental or lease.

Diversified Data Resources, Inc., has provided enterprise management systems for the MVS, VM, VSE, UNIX and ACP/TPF environment for more than 12 years. DDR was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Novato, CA.

Contact: George Faucher, Vice President Diversified Data Resources, Inc.
7200 Redwood Blvd., Suite 222 Novato, California, 94945-3257
Toll free: (800) 233-DDRI (3374)
Sales Office: (415) 898-8282
Facsimile: (415) 898-7331
Web Site: http://www.ddri.com