Aprisma will announce its new SPECTRUM products on December 3rd, but we were allowed a glimpse of some of the new features that will be added to this mega network management software.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Associate Editor [November 19, 2001]

On December 3rd, Aprisma will officially announce SPECTRUM infinity, a network management system specifically designed for massive service providers. The product will be available in January, 2002.

The current generation of the product, SPECTRUM 6.0, is widely used itself and is also an important part of C-Plane's Ignition product, which integrate billing and network management, but SPECTRUM 6.0 is not new—it was released in 1999.

The SPECTRUM product has been on the market since 1990. It was developed by Cabletron. Cabletron spun off the SPRECTRUM product to form Aprisma Management Technologies. The company then split into Entrasys Networks which focuses on VPNs, Security, and other enterprise concerns; and Riverstone Networks, a manufacturer of Ethernet products and related equipment which also has a consulting business.

The SPECTRUM product has been a single product offered to everyone, but the company learned that it needed to change.

Says David Orzechowski, vice president of marketing for Aprisma, "we have customers who form an advisory council, and we learned that we weren't fulfilling their needs perfectly." So instead of releasing SPRECTRUM 7.0, the company broke its product into two and decided to release SPECTRUM infinity for service providers and SPECTRUM integrity for corporate networks.

Orzechowski says that a key differentiator for all SPECTRUM products is the software's ability to work directly with network elements. "A competitor might require a tech to open a CiscoWorks package, but SPECTRUM allows a service provider to bring up the Cisco configuration screen directly."

Aprisma is constantly writing additional software modules to work with new products (such as routers and switches) as they are produced. Vendors whose products are covered include Apache, BEA, Cisco, Citrix, Extreme, Foundry, IBM, Jupiter, Lucent, Microsoft, Nortel, Oracle, Sun, and, of course, Enterasys and Riverstone (the two companies that together make up the former parent of Aprisma).

When we spoke, Orzechowski said Aprisma had developed about 850 modules. In the past, the company charged separately for each module, but has chosen to include them all in the next release.

Other new features of SPECTRUM infinity include:

• The ability to prioritize device management according to the services that those devices run (i.e., devices running "Gold" level service would get attention before those running "Silver" level services)
• The ability to set alerts so that if a network is becoming congested, the service provider can be alerted before the client sees the problem and the service is impacted
• "Virtually unlimited scalability"
• OSS gateways to ease integration with CRM, billing, and other systems

Current SPECTRUM customers will receive a free upgrade to either of the new services (integrity and infinity) depending on their business. Aprisma has re-coded parts of the product, especially those handling alerts, and those customers who upgrade should notice a 100 percent performance improvement in the handling of certain key processes such as the analysis of pre-defined traps.

SPECTRUM's root cause analysis engine will also be included in the purchase price. Root cause analysis software pinpoints the source of a problem and is an essential part of network troubleshooting. Says Orzechowski, "network management without root cause analysis is like having a car without tires. We feel the two just go together."

The company claims that its software translates into big savings. According to a study commissioned by the company and conducted by IDC, the return on investment (ROI) over six years for an unnamed telco was 970 percent.

The cost over six years was reported to be $2.4 million annually, which includes the costs of licenses, maintenance, planning, design, implementation, training, and administration.

The report claims annual operational savings of $10.69 million, annual reduction in lost revenue of $877,222, and annual reduction in outages of at least 40 percent.

Pricing and availability
SPECTRUM infinity is scheduled for release in January of 2002.

The price starts at $125,000, with extra costs depending on the size of the network. Expanded licenses are sold in 50, 100, and 250 device increments, but volume discounts for these will be available.

—End