OPSW Opsware (MM)

New Network Automation System 6.0 & The Opsware Network Service Provide Breakthroughs in Automating Network Compliance and Security for Large, Distributed IT Environments Opsware Inc. (NASDAQ:OPSW), the leading provider of IT Automation software, today introduced at Interop Las Vegas 2006, Opsware Network Automation System (NAS) 6.0, which provides state-of-the-art network management and compliance enforcement for large global networks and complex VoIP, wireless and Virtual Private Network (VPN) environments. Already ranked by independent testers as the #1 network automation solution for three years in a row, Opsware NAS 6.0 once again raises the bar in network compliance and configuration management by providing new cutting-edge capabilities in the areas of compliance enforcement, network security management, disaster recovery and troubleshooting. With the massive explosion of network devices, today's IT environments are drastically different than just a few years ago. IT organizations are under major pressure to ensure that network infrastructure is in compliance with regulatory and internal policies and highly secure across distributed, global network environments. In addition, the scale, multi-vendor nature and increasing heterogeneity brought about by next-generation infrastructures make today's IT environments highly complex, vulnerable to security attacks and costly to manage. Opsware NAS 6.0 builds upon its enterprise class, award-winning capabilities to provide powerful state-of-the-art network compliance and change management. The new product introduces four major breakthroughs in network automation: (1) a new model for preventing unauthorized changes from being propagated into the IT environment; (2) a visual view of the network environment to ease troubleshooting and change management; (3) new technology for global policy enforcement and disaster recovery; and (4) a new security service that automates the process of identifying network vulnerabilities and closing security loopholes across the network environment. "With NAS 6.0, Opsware continues to set the pace in network automation with a robust set of functionality that can help customers achieve increased efficiencies and higher quality IT operations by simplifying the management of device types and applications across highly distributed IT systems," said Elisabeth Rainge, program director for Next-Gen OSS, Billing and Network Management at IDC. "NAS 6.0 can provide customers with more control over compliance enforcement and offers a valuable service to automate management of network infrastructure security through automated identification of network vulnerabilities." Highlights of the Opsware Network Automation System 6.0 New Network Compliance Model Organizations need to track network compliance and security levels to ensure that the network meets regulatory and internal policies. However, identifying the problem after it has been deployed to the network and responding with patches and/or configuration fixes is not an effective solution. Opsware's new Network Compliance Model maintains a model of each device's policies and configurations, device interdependencies and user roles, and prevents administrators from making changes that deviate from policy. New Security Service -- The Opsware Network With NAS 6.0, Opsware introduces a new security service, The Opsware Network, which automates the identification of security vulnerabilities across the network environment. The Opsware Network provides an ongoing stream of vulnerability alerts and remediation in the form of actionable policies so IT organizations are proactively informed on where security exposures exist and can immediately act on fixing the issue through automated remediation capabilities provided in Opsware NAS. The Opsware Network service is provided in conjunction with the Opsware Network Automation System. Visual Analysis of the Global Network Environment Today's network engineers are limited to managing the network at the element level, with little understanding of how the devices interrelate or depend on each other. For example, a user pushes changes to each device individually with little visibility into what the downstream effects might be. Opsware NAS 6.0 introduces unique network visualization technology which maps the Layer 2 and Layer 3 network to enable deeper understanding of the network and swifter, more accurate troubleshooting. Global Policy Enforcement and Disaster Recovery Opsware's cutting-edge Multimaster and Satellite technologies, which have been key to the appeal and rapid adoption of Opsware's Server Automation System, are now offered in Opsware NAS 6.0. Opsware's Multimaster and Satellite technologies enable the management of geographically distributed devices from a centralized location, allowing global policy enforcement and ensuring operations consistency across the entire environment. Additionally, Multimaster dramatically speeds the recovery of a data center environment in the event of a failure or disaster by enabling the immediate re-creation of device configurations and firmware levels. Opsware Satellite provides central management of network devices in complex environments, such as networks that rely on network address translation (NAT) or networks with duplicate IP addresses. Support for VoIP VoIP has experienced massive growth over the last few years and is now a critical component of today's business environment. VoIP requires a stable and reliable network to deploy services such as video or voice, which are highly sensitive to network instability and disruption. Support for VoIP in NAS 6.0 provides companies with extremely short mean time to repair (MTTR) for critical VoIP services. "Network automation is rapidly becoming part of the management DNA for IT," said Tim Howes, CTO at Opsware Inc. "In addition to the award-winning capabilities our customers already rely on, NAS 6.0 delivers a whole new model for proactive compliance enforcement and fully automated security management with the new Opsware Network service that brings enormous value and cost savings to enterprise network environments." Opsware NAS automates thousands of network devices types from over 35 vendors, and has won every competitive product review consecutively since 2004. Opsware Network Automation System 6.0 is available immediately. About Interop(R) Interop(R), now part of the CMP Media family of global brands, has led the revolution and evolution in IP networking for the past twenty years, and is dedicated to promoting and demonstrating the interoperability of the converged network, applications and devices to seamlessly exchange and use information to address the full range of business challenges facing IT organizations today and tomorrow. As the leading destination for technology buyers and sellers, Interop has fostered the growth and evolution of the IT industry for the past two decades, and remains the most anticipated and only comprehensive IT event. Through in-depth educational programs, workshops, real-world demonstrations and live technology implementations in its unique InteropNet and InteropLabs programs, Interop(R) provides the forum for the most powerful innovations and solutions the industry has to offer. Interop(R) Las Vegas will take place at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, April 30-May 5, 2006, and Interop(R) New York 2006 will take place at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, September 18-22, 2006. For more information about these events, visit www.interop.com. About CMP Media (www.cmp.com) CMP Media is a marketing solutions company serving the technology, healthcare and lifestyles industries. Through its market-leading portfolio of trusted information brands, CMP Media has earned the confidence of more professionals and enthusiasts in these fields than any other media company. As a result, CMP is the premier provider of access, insight and actionable programs designed to connect sellers and buyers in each of these industries in ways that yield superior return on investment. CMP Media is a subsidiary of United Business Media (http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com), a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than USD 3 billion. About Opsware Inc. (NASDAQ:OPSW) Opsware Inc. is the world's leading IT Automation software company. The growth of the Internet is driving a shift from client/server computing to Web architecture. With this shift comes an overwhelming proliferation of servers, networking devices and applications, creating massive complexity that makes automated IT operations a necessity. Opsware automates the complete IT lifecycle and enables IT to automatically discover, provision, patch, configure, secure, change, scale, audit, recover, consolidate, migrate, and reallocate servers, network devices and applications. Over 350 of the world's largest companies, outsourcers and government agencies use Opsware to deliver this new, automated model of IT. For more information on Opsware Inc., please visit our Web site at www.opsware.com. Opsware is a service mark and trademark of Opsware Inc. All other product names, service marks, and trademarks mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.