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1 eg Enterprise vs. a Big 4 Monitoring Soution: Comparing Tota Cost of Ownership

2 Restricted Rights Legend The information contained in this document is confidentia and subject to change without notice. No part of this document may be reproduced or discosed to others without the prior permission of eg Innovations, Inc. eg Innovations, Inc. makes no warranty of any kind with regard to the software and documentation, incuding, but not imited to, the impied warranties of merchantabiity and fitness for a particuar purpose. Copyright Copyright eg Innovations, Inc. A rights reserved. A trademarks, marked and not marked, are the property of their respective owners. Specifications subject to change without notice.

3 Introduction As budgets shrink and empoyee headcounts foow suit in today s down economy, businesses need to do more with ess. More than ever, expenses are being reviewed for necessity, business benefits and to gauge the return on investment. This is especiay true in the case of IT-reated expenses, and monitoring software is no exception. Case Study The IT organization of the medium-sized business being profied is ooking for a performance management soution that serves as a singe pane of gass for its entire heterogeneous IT infrastructure. The target IT infrastructure has servers and 2 network devices. The break down of servers based on operating system and hardware capabiities is shown in the Tabe beow. This white paper presents a comparative anaysis of the eg Enterprise Suite TM against a Big 4 management soution. Through a case study exampe of a medium-sized enterprise ooking for a monitoring soution, this report provides an anaysis of the tota cost of ownership (TCO) with eg Enterprise versus one of the Big 4 management soutions. The resuts highight the icensing simpicity of eg Enterprise and demonstrate the significant cost benefits that eg Enterprise offers to enterprises of a sizes. Pricing information provided in this document is indicative of typica pricing of the respective products, and is not based on price ists or quotations. Server Hardware Windows x86, -4 CPUs, < 8GB RAM Windows x86, -8 CPUs, 8-6 GB RAM Windows x64, 4-6 CPUs, 2 GB RAM Unix (Linux, Soaris, HPUX, AIX), -4 CPUs, < 8GB RAM Unix (Linux, Soaris, HPUX, AIX), 2 CPUs, 2-64 GB RAM Tota Server Tiers Tier Tier Server Count 2 2 Big 4 Management Soutions Management frameworks from the Big 4 -- HP, IBM, Computer Associates and BMC Software -- are considered the eading management soutions. With hundreds of products in their portfoios, these management frameworks cover amost every aspect of monitoring and management in an IT infrastructure incuding network, server, and appication management, security management, patch distribution, configuration and inventory management, etc. eg Enterprise The award-winning eg Enterprise Suite from eg Innovations, Inc. addresses the performance management chaenges in mutitier infrastructures. In such environments, it is often a huge chaenge to determine what resource/s cause a given probem, i.e., where the root-cause ies. Is it the Network? Database? Appication? Server? With speciaized capabiities for monitoring over 8+ appications, + operating systems, and + virtuaization patforms, eg Enterprise is a comprehensive, next-generation enterprise management soution with the widest infrastructure coverage, spanning both virtua and physica environments. IT managers say they're tiring of the Big 4 vendors, ooking to others for ease-of-use and ow-cost options More than 4% of respondents to a Gartner survey gave the Big 4 vendors a C grade, whie neary % suggested the vendors' performance was coser to a D average. About /rd of management software buyers want to see better pricing and ease-of-use from vendors. Source: Network Word, May 27 Tabe : Case Study Server Configuration Whie 4 of the servers host fie and print services and other infrastructure services, the other servers support business critica appications. The appication-to-servers mix in the target infrastructure is dispayed in Tabe 2. Server Hardware Orace Database Servers Microsoft SQL Database Servers WebLogic J2EE Appication Servers WebSphere J2EE Appication Servers Microsoft Exchange Web Frontend, Maibox Store, Exchange hub, Database Servers Tota Server Tiers Tier Tier Tier Tier Tier Tier Tier Tier Tier Tier Tabe 2: Appication-to-Server Configurations Server Count 6 4

4 Case Study Requirements The IT organization has the foowing key monitoring and management requirements: The monitoring system must provide integrated monitoring of networks, servers and appications. The monitoring system must provide a web-based interface so users can ogin from anywhere at any time to view the status of the monitored infrastructure. The monitoring system must provide rea-time aerts to users when a probem happens. The monitoring system must provide the abiity for administrators to generate historica reports for capacity panning, post mortem diagnosis, and trends. The monitoring system must incude a correation engine to correate aerts across network, server and appication ayers, and across the different tiers of the infrastructure. Monitoring capabiities provided by the system shoud incude support for Unix and Microsoft Windows operating systems. Appication-specific monitoring for Orace, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, WebLogic, and WebSphere appications shoud be provided. Big 4 Management Soution Pricing To address these requirements, this white paper uses one of the Big 4 management frameworks. Since the pricing mode, product structure and capabiities of the frameworks in this category are simiar, this anaysis is representative of any of the monitoring frameworks. Severa discrete products from the Big 4 monitoring framework (see Figure ) are necessary to configure a compete soution that addresses the case study requirements. These incude: Network management soution for monitoring the network devices in the infrastructure. A Big 4 vendor's VARs were tod they coud expect 7 to 8 doars in services for every doar of software sod. IT departments started to see their budgets dwinde in order to impement this soution. Source: Adventures in Open Source, Bog Archive Operations management soution that provides a centra consoe for server and appication management; the network management soution aso integrates into this operations management consoe. Event correation engine for anayzing performance, dedupicating aerts, prioritization across aerts, if-then-ese correation rue impementation, etc. Reporting engine to provide operations and executive reports. User views capabiity that ensures unimited user views when accessing the web consoe for performance monitoring. Active probes for active monitoring of networks and appications by emuating requests to appications. Individua agents for monitoring the various server operating systems. Appication pug-ins for monitoring each specific appication. The Big 4 server agents and appication pug-ins are priced based on the hardware capabiities of the server being monitored. The number of CPUs and the server OS (e.g., whether Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, or Datacenter Edition) governs the pricing of the server and appication agents. The higher the hardware capabiities of the server being monitored, the higher the pricing for the monitoring agents. Therefore, the more servers The Agent The Manager Unix Agent/Tier- Web Viewer (,, users) Unix Agent/Tier- Aarm Manager Unix Agent/Tier-2 Correation Engine Windows Agent/Tier- Reporting Engine Windows Agent/Tier- Exporer Windows Agent/Tier-2 Performance Manager Pug-in for Orace SLA modue Pug-in for MS Exchange Integration manager Pug-in for SQL server Pug-in for WebLogic Pug-in for WebSphere Pug-in for Citrix Pug-in for performance Pug-in for prediction Externa monitoring (,, 2 targets) Transaction recorder/payback Figure : Agent & Pug-in Configuration for a Big 4 Management Soution

5 Product Unit Price (US$) Units Tota Price (US$) Big 4 Operations Management Bunde (incudes Network Manager, Event Correation 64,79 64,79 Engine, System Management Consoe) Big 4 Reporting Engine 29,994 29,994 Big 4 User Views (unimited) 9,9 9,9 Big 4 Active Probes (2) 2,96 2,96 Big 4 Tier- Server Agents 8 29,22 Big 4 Tier- Server Agents,9 4 47,8 Big 4 Tier-2 Server Agents,9 4 47,8 Big 4 Tier- Server Agents,,2 Orace Pug-in 2,99 2,99 Orace Pug-in 6,9 9,78 Orace Pug-in Tier, ,7 MS SQL Pug-in Tier,79 8,97 MS SQL Pug-in 2,99 8,98 MS SQL Pug-in 6,9 9,78 MS SQL Pug-in Tier, ,78 WebLogic Pug-in Tier,79 8,97 WebLogic Pug-in 2,99 4,97 WebSphere Pug-in Tier,79 8,97 WebSphere Pug-in 2,99 4,97 MS Exchange Pug-in Tier,9,97 MS Exchange Pug-in,67 8,7 Tota Cost $62, Tabe : Big 4 TCO to Meet the Monitoring Requirements of the IT Organization Considered in the Case Study In reaity, tota cost of ownership is more than just the icense fees, which are stated in Tabe. To fuy understand TCO, it is necessary to add the cost of annua maintenance/upgrades for the purchased software and the number of consuting hours required to impement the soution. The [Big 4] vendor s pricing structure was odd You need to buy a consoe icense for each dispay. Each new area you want to monitor in addition to the basic OS, Orace, Internet, etc. has to be icensed and paid for. If you want a notification modue, you have to buy that too Pus, there are hundreds of parameters you probaby never ook at. Source: Usenet archives that are in the higher tiers, the higher the tota cost of ownership of the soution. Further, the pug-ins are specific to the different appications being monitored. The price of these pug-ins aso goes up with increases in hardware capabiities of the servers upon which the appications are hosted. Tabe summarizes the icense fees associated with the Big 4 monitoring soution to meet the monitoring requirements outined above. Whie the annua maintenance costs are roughy 2% of price for most software soutions, the consuting requirements depend on the compexity of the software being instaed and configured. For any management soution, consuting hours are required for instaation of the management consoe and agents, for configuring the monitoring, for setting and fine-tuning threshods, etc. Since the Big 4 monitoring frameworks have event correation engines that are rues based, severa man months of consuting typicay is required for buiding these if-then-ese rues used by the event correation engine for prioritizing aerts. As a rue of thumb, the tota consuting doars for a Big 4 monitoring soution is five to six times the cost of the product. Therefore, in the above exampe, the IT organization must pan to spend more than $ miion for its impementation of a Big 4 monitoring soution!

6 eg Enterprise Suite Pricing eg Enterprise foows a decidedy different icensing mode from the Big 4 management frameworks. The saient aspects of eg Enterprise s icensing mode incude: Network management is an integrated part of the eg Enterprise suite. The eg externa agent can be used to monitor network connectivity to servers, network devices, firewas, oad baancers, etc. Using SNMP, the eg agent can aso be configured to po specific SNMP attributes from these devices for device-specific monitoring. Standard SNMP MIBs (e.g., MIB-II) as we as proprietary MIBs can be poed. An externa agent can aso be configured to receive SNMP traps from the network devices, firewas, etc. To monitor a arge infrastructure, administrators can configure mutipe externa agents, each of which pos and monitors a part of the infrastructure. Depending on the hardware capabiities of the system on which it is hosted, an eg externa agent can monitor tens to hundreds of network devices. The eg Enterprise management consoe is an integrated soution with extensive automation capabiities -- and no hidden costs. o Automatic baseining: The eg Manager uses historica data to compute automatic baseines for metrics, so when a metric deviates from its norm, proactive aerts can be generated to notify an administrator about a probem, often we before users notice and compain. o Embedded root-cause anaysis engine: The eg Enterprise consoe incudes a patented root-cause anaysis engine that correates among metrics at the network, server and appication ayers of the protoco stack and across tiers of the infrastructure to pin-point where the cause of a probem ies i.e., the network, database, appication, physica server, VM? Citrix?. o Reporting engine: A reporting engine incuded in the eg Manager provides administrators with web-based access 7% of users found singe agent monitoring to be one of the most usefu features of eg Enterprise. (Source: TVID:4F-76-4B) to historica reports and trends. Administrators have access to reports taiored for the different needs of executives and operations staff. o Muti-tenancy and personaized views: eg Enterprise offers unimited user views. Each user view can be aigned to the roes and responsibiities that the user performs in an organization. As a resut, there are no additiona costs for the autobaseining, automatic root-cause diagnostic capabiities, reporting engine and unimited user views. Figure 2 shows the eg Enterprise product architecture. The eg Manager and consoe are part of the base product offering. Additiona pug-ins are required for advanced functionaity such as remote contro, high avaiabiity and extensibiity of the monitoring soution for new devices and custom appications. Externa, active monitoring of appications can be handed by the defaut agent on the eg Manager system. Active monitoring by periodicay poing appications is a usefu method for tracking appication avaiabiity and responsiveness. eg Enterprise achieves this using the externa agent (which is typicay instaed on the same system as the eg Manager). Additiona externa agents can be added to the eg Enterprise system as required for scaabiity. eg Pug-ins eg Manager eg Consoe ADVANCED REPORTING TRENDS ANALYSIS SERVICE LEVEL AUDITS MULTILEVEL DIAGNOSIS ADVANCED REPORTING REDUNDANCY AUTO DISCOVERY SERVICE MONITORING % WEB INTERFACE SMS ALERTS CONTROL ACTIONS DATA ANALYSIS REALTIME ALERTS AUTO THRESHOLDING CONTROL ACTIONS INTEGRATION CONSOLE MULTI PHASE CORRELATION SINGLE CLICK TRIAGE PROBLEM MANAGEMENT INTEGRATION CONSOLE eg Monitoring AGENTLESS MONITORING SINGLE AGENT MONITORING MULTILOCATION TESTING Services, Systems, Appications, and Networks Figure 2: Conceptua Diagram of the eg Enterprise Product Architecture

7 OS Hooks, VMAPI W h i t e P a p e r The eg Singe Agent offers unparaeed cost savings and depoyment fexibiity (see Figure ). Unike the Big 4 management frameworks, eg Enterprise does not charge per appication monitored. There are no knowedge modues or smart pug-ins. Agent icensing is not specific to the server operating system or to the hardware capabiities of the server being managed. For instance, the same agent icense can one day, and monitor a Sun Soaris server running the Orace database another day. The abiity to have a singe agent for monitoring each server operating system and a the appications on it makes eg Enterprise one of the most costeffective soutions in the industry. Tabe 4 summarizes the cost of ownership of the eg Enterprise product suite. The pricing indicated beow is for comparative purposes ony. Pricing for eg Enterprise varies from one geography to another and interested enterprises shoud contact eg Innovations authorized partners in their territory for more information. 8% of users saw vaue from eg Enterprise within a month of depoyment. % of users saw vaue within two weeks of depoyment. (Source: TVID:DA-9D-D) Unike the Big 4 frameworks, eg Enterprise has extensive automation capabiities out of the box. As a resut, administrators and consutants do not spend endess hours setting up, configuring and fine-tuning the soution. Furthermore, eg Enterprise s correation engine is rues free. Administrators do not have to buid compex if-then-ese scripts for prioritizing aerts. A singe agent icense for Microsoft, Linux, Sun Soaris, HPUX, IBM AIX, VMware, Xen, Tru64, OS4 A singe price, regardess of OS or server configuration - 2, 4, 8, 6 CPUs A singe agent for monitoring any appication A singe price to manage mutipe appications on the same server Auto upgradabe Agentess monitoring option % web-based - HTTP/HTTPS 8+ appications monitored out of the box eg Manager HTTP/HTTPS Logs, APIs Custom Appications VMware eg Agent JCO/ABAP SQL SAP R/ Orace, SQL Emuated Transactions ICMP/SNMP JMX ISAPI NSAPI Custom APIs Perfmon / WMI Windows Appications Web, Emai, DNS, FTP Network Devices App Servers - WebLogic Web Servers Sybase, DB2 Figure : The eg Enterprise Singe Agent Architecture be used for a server with four CPUs and one with 6 CPUs. Moreover, a singe eg agent can monitor a the appications running on a server. Since the agent icense is not tied to server hardware, operating system or appication, an administrator may use the eg singe agent to monitor a Windows server running the SQL database server appication eg Enterprise incudes pre-defined modes for more than operating systems, five virtuaization patforms and more than 8 appications. These modes define what metrics are coected, how frequenty, what threshods are appied to the metrics, etc. Administrators and consutants do not have to spend endess hours configuring or fine tuning these modes. Product eg Basic Agent (OS monitoring) eg Premium Agent (OS and appication monitoring in-depth) eg Externa Agents (externa appication monitoring + network monitoring) Tota Cost Unit Price (US$) Units Tota Price (US$) 82 2,49 2,49 4 7,2 7,22 2,47 $86,82 Tabe 4: eg Enterprise TCO to Meet the Monitoring Requirements of the IT Organization in the Case Study. Indicative pricing ony. Actua pricing varies based on geography. Pease contact your eg Authorized Partner or Account Manager to find out the pricing for your geography.

8 As a resut, when depoying eg Enterprise, typica consuting costs range from to % of the cost of the product 2. Taking this into account, the TCO of the eg Enterprise soution in this exampe woud be roughy $26,8 -- ess than % of the TCO of a Big 4 monitoring soution for the same infrastructure. Summary With such a ow comparative TCO, it is no surprise that the return on investment using eg Enterprise is much shorter than that with a Big 4 monitoring soution. A recent independent survey by TechVaidate of 2+ eg Enterprise users found that about 8% saw vaue within month of depoying the soution (Figure 4). When evauating a monitoring soution for your IT infrastructure, it is vita to consider the tota cost of ownership not just the direct purchase price. TCO is the tota of the product costs, customization charges pus maintenance fees, technica support and professiona services that you may need to get the soution working in your infrastructure. Typicay, a Big 4 monitoring soution entais a significant investment severa miions of doars to get up and running, and requires severa years before you can expect to see a return on this investment. 84% of users reported that eg Enterprise heped them avoid service outages by identifying probems before end users were affected. (Source: TVID:8C-B-D2E) Without comparing the eg Enterprise and Big 4 products feature for feature, one cear difference between the two must be emphasized. Big 4 frameworks monitor infrastructure eements (appications, systems, networks, etc.) in a sioed basis. That is, they ook at appications and business service performance on a piece mea basis according to designated tiers or sios of the infrastructure. Since they do not provide a true end-to-end, topto-bottom view of the entire infrastructure that can be monitored from a singe consoe, they can ony report that a probem has occurred they cannot pinpoint where the true root cause of the probem can be found. % of Users < week < 2 weeks < 4 weeks < months By comparison, eg Enterprise monitors appications and business services not discrete infrastructure components. By tracking the interdependencies among a IT resources that support a given appication or business service, potentiay spanning every ayer of every tier of the infrastructure, eg Enterprise is abe to quicky isoate root cause. For exampe, the TechVaidate customer study found that 84% of users reported that eg Enterprise heped them avoid service outages by identifying probems before end users were affected. 8% of users saw vaue within a month of depoyment About eg Innovations Figure 4: Time to Vaue with the eg Enterprise Suite By comparison, the eg Enterprise Suite offers a viabe and proven cost-effective aternative to the Big 4 monitoring soutions. Significant automation buit into the product suite, a simpe icensing mode based on powerfu singe agent technoogy and an embedded rues-free correation engine a ensure that eg Enterprise can be impemented and depoyed at ess than / th the tota cost of ownership of a Big 4 monitoring soution. eg Innovations, Inc. ( is a goba provider of performance monitoring and triage soutions for both virtua and physica IT infrastructures. The company s patented technoogies provide proactive monitoring of every ayer of every tier in the infrastructure, thereby enabing rapid diagnosis and recovery in enterprise and service provider networks. By ensuring high avaiabiity and optimum performance of missioncritica business services, eg Innovations soutions hep enhance customers competitive positioning, ower operationa costs and optimize the performance of their infrastructures. In cosing, this white paper has merey compared tota cost of ownership for eg Enterprise and a Big 4 framework in the context of a hypothetica case study. This report has not examined actua performance and capabiities between the two products. For more information: saes@eginnovations.com 2. Consuting services incude instaation, configuration, fine-tuning, training, etc. The consuting services required for an instaation depend on the scae of the depoyment, the specific appications being monitored and the ski eve of the operations staff.