SAN JOSE, Calif., February 7, 2001 - Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, announced today that 21ViaNet, TManage, and ZoomTown.com have all selected Cisco Info Center (CIC) as their network monitoring platform for the services they deliver to business and communications communities.
Based on Micromuse's Netcool suite of products, Cisco Info Center is a service-level monitoring and diagnostics tool that provides network fault and performance monitoring, trouble isolation, and realtime service-level management for large networks. CIC is designed to help operators focus on important network events, offering a combination of alarm reduction rules, filtering, customizable alarm viewing, and partitioning. Cisco Info Center provides a highly configurable client/server application that can consolidate, deduplicate, filter, and correlate fault information from a wide range of management platforms and multiple network layers.
Utilizing these key features, 21ViaNet selected Cisco Info Center for service assurance and network monitoring. 21ViaNet is one of the largest privately owned Internet Data Center operators in the People's Republic of China. As a new generation Application Infrastructure Provider, 21ViaNet provides customers with Hosting Service, Managed Service, and Professional Service. 21ViaNet was also the first pure hosting company to receive approval by the Ministry of Information Industry to gain access to the National Access Point (NAP). As one of the only companies in China with more than one year of commercial IDC operating experience, 21ViaNet provides customers with 24W7 Single-Point-of-Contact customer service.
"As the largest pure hosting provider in China, it is critical for 21ViaNet to maintain network uptime and performance," said Peng Jin, vice president of 21ViaNet. "We are expanding our network infrastructure and offering new services at a rapid pace and the service assurance offered by CIC helps us provide superior service levels through realtime infrastructure monitoring."
TManage, Inc., a recognized leader in remote workforce management, provides organizations with the remote connectivity, integration, and support that enable them to successfully manage their remote workforce while maintaining focus on core competencies. Utilizing leading edge technologies and unrivaled remote workforce expertise, TManage works with forward-thinking companies to help them optimize productivity and increase competitive advantage while reducing the costs and complexities of remote work. TManage also provides advanced managed network services through its TM3 Network Services group.
"CIC is a central piece of our network operating support system and the core of our network operations center. TM3 uses CIC to proactively monitor our customers' networks from end-to-end and as the integration manager of our voice, data, and video management services. Part of our competitive advantage is our ability to use best-of-breed tools like CIC to deliver our best in class network management system," said Doug Hooton, vice president and general manager, TManage TM3 Network Services. "The ability to efficiently and securely segment customer network information allows us to provide enterprise network management services to our entire customer base at an extremely aggressive price."
ZoomTown.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of Broadwing Inc., has an award-winning Cisco Powered ADSL network and one of the highest geographic penetrations of broadband subscribers in the nation with over 40,000 ADSL subscribers in the Cincinnati market.
"We have experienced significant growth in our network over the past year in terms of customers and the applications we are delivering. Cisco Info Center's realtime monitoring and SLA reporting have been invaluable in this expansion," said Jeff Carr, chief operations executive at ZoomTown.com. "As a key piece of our network operations center, CIC ties all of our other devices and services into a single view, significantly streamlining our overall network management and allowing us to ensure a consistent experience for our subscribers."
"Cisco Info Center offers a compelling value-add that complements our comprehensive network equipment and network management solutions," said Todd Murray, vice president, Communications Software Group, Cisco Systems. "We have had outstanding results with CIC in many diverse service provider markets and are seeing increasing demand for robust network monitoring technologies that enable the delivery of enhanced services."
Continuing its relationship with Micromuse, a leading provider of realtime fault management and service assurance software, Cisco has renewed its OEM agreement to resell the Netcool suite of applications under the Cisco Info Center brand. CIC is the fault management component of the Cisco Service Management (CSM) infrastructure, a key component of Cisco's Internet OSS approach. The CSM infrastructure offers end-to-end network and service management solutions for service providers and large enterprise networks. More than 150 service providers and large-scale enterprises worldwide have deployed CIC since the original agreement began in December 1997.
"The adoption of CIC in many areas of the service provider market has been exceptional," said Greg Brown, Micromuse's Chairman & CEO. "We are very pleased with Micromuse's continued association with Cisco Systems and are excited about the opportunity to continue to fulfill their needs for critical network infrastructure management and service assurance capabilities."
