HP Ships Distributed Version Of HP OpenView Network Node Manager For
Control Of Large Corporate Internets

Customers and Partners Embrace Distributed Version of HP's Industry-leading
Network Management Platform

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA. APRIL 2, 1996

In response to industry demand for a more powerful and scaleable
network-management solution to manage today's growing internetworks,
Hewlett-Packard Company today announced it is shipping the eagerly awaited
distributed version of its industry-leading network-management platform,
HP OpenView Network Node Manager. The product now manages corporate
internets at least 10 times larger than before.

Today's announcement is the culmination of a project designed to provide
customers and partners with a distributed network-management platform
capable of managing larger, more interdependent and geographically
dispersed corporate internets. The new Network Node Manager completes the
transition to a distributed architecture by allowing management tasks and
processes -- that until now ran on a single server -- to be shared by
multiple servers.

The new Network Node Manager's distributed architecture helps eliminate the
overload that management systems place on network, system and human
resources. The product also gives organizations the flexibility to install
a network-management solution that adapts to their evolving information
technology (IT) environment, instead of requiring organizations to adapt
their IT environments to fit their management solution. This new version
of Network Node Manager will be demonstrated at the Networld + Interop
trade show in Las Vegas, April 2 to 4. Shipments began April 1.

Why Distributed Management?

Distributed network management enables IT organizations to manage larger
network environments by spreading management tasks among multiple people
and servers at multiple sites. This reduces the load that the management
solution places on network and system resources. By providing the
distributed management servers with the ability to communicate with each
other, IT administrators in different locations can share management
information and cooperatively solve problems.

"Our customers require a network-management solution that will allow people
and systems at multiple sites -- often a great distance from each other --
to intelligently share information with their peers to more effectively
solve problems and ensure the availability of their internet," said
Olivier Helleboid, general manager of HP's Network and System Management
Division. "With today's introduction, customers now can flexibly deploy a
solution that can manage larger networks than before, while enabling
cooperative management among people at multiple sites."

"Distribution and scalability have been consistently at the top of the list
of our members' requirements," said Paul Edmunds, president of the
OpenView Forum user group. "With this release of Network Node Manager, HP
is addressing these requirements."

Product Manages Corporate Internets at Least 10 Times Larger Than Before

Through Distributed Internet Discovery and Monitoring (DIDM), Network Node
Manager now spreads its management workload across multiple, synchronized
servers, giving operators the power to monitor and manage networks at
least 10 times larger than before while easing the burden on network,
system and human resources. This allows customers to go from managing
thousands of devices to managing tens of thousands of devices.

With each server running a full-function copy of Network Node Manager, key
network-management functionality now can be distributed to multiple remote
management servers located closer to the devices that they are managing.
Each server then can send information about the devices it is managing to
one or many additional Network Node Manager servers in either a
peer-to-peer or hierarchical deployment.

Each distributed version of Network Node Manager offers the functionality
needed to perform all of the functions that customers have grown
accustomed to, including discovery, status polling, threshold monitoring
and event handling for their local domains. Each server can communicate
real-time updates of any status or topology change within the monitored
environment to any and all other Network Node Manager servers.

Unlike competitive offerings, Network Node Manager's ability to centrally
receive and consolidate topology and status information gathered from
multiple remote management servers gives operators a single integrated
view of an entire corporate internet. For example, if an operator at
corporate IT needs to see all enterprise routers in a single view, he/she
can do so by having each remote Network Node Manager server send just
router information to the corporate IT management server, which then can
present a single consolidated view to the operator.

Customers Benefit From the Elimination of Resource Overload

Network Node Manager eliminates the overload on IT organizations' network,
system and human resources, resulting in faster system response times,
faster problem resolution and increased network performance. Moreover,
Network Node Manager's distributed capability allows operators to spend
less time waiting for network information and more time acting on it.

In the past, a company that wanted to centrally manage devices at a remote
site, could do so only over slow and expensive wide area network (WAN)
lines. By distributing discovery, status polling, threshold monitoring and
event handling to local domains -- with only critical status changes or
exception conditions reported back to a centralized management station --
IT managers now can optimize network utilization by reducing the volume of
management traffic traveling over expensive WAN links. This reduction in
network load is expected to result in more efficient and cost-effective
use of network bandwidth, freeing much-needed network capacity and
processing power for mission-critical business applications.

The distributed version of Network Node Manager also eliminates resource
overload -- especially the load on people -- through new, advanced
filtering capabilities. Three new filters allow operators to eliminate
unnecessary data from being discovered, sent between distributed
management servers or presented to operator consoles. They are expected to
reduce the amount of data clutter and provide operators with only the
quality information they really want. The filters are as follows:

* DOMAIN FILTERING -- allows operators to discover and monitor only the IP
devices they are interested in managing. This results in an increase in
overall system performance as well as a reduction in disk space and memory
utilization;

* INTER-DOMAIN FILTERING -- allows operators to restrict what management
information is passed from domain to domain. This reduces system
requirements as well as the amount of management data moving across the
network; and

* MAP FILTERING -- allows operators to customize views by choosing to
display only those devices they wish to manage.

For example, suppose an organization has a site and a central IT department
in Chicago with additional sites in Denver and Dallas.

* Denver and Dallas IT personnel want to manage all devices at their sites
with the exception of PC's. They can use domain filtering to discover and
monitor all devices except for PCs.

* If Chicago's IT department needs to be able to manage hubs and routers
across the entire organization, including those in Denver and Dallas, it
can set up inter-domain filtering between Chicago and the additional
management locations such that hub and router information from Denver and
Dallas, and only that information, is sent to Chicago.

* Finally, if Chicago has two operators, one with responsibility for
routers and the other with responsibility for hubs, each can utilize map
filtering to display only those devices they wish to manage.

Another feature now included in the new version of Network Node Manager is
On-demand Submaps, providing operators with faster access to network
submaps while reducing the amount of main memory required by the
management console by 90 percent. These benefits are achieved by loading
into main memory only those submaps that an operator needs to access. All
other submaps are loaded and updated only as needed.

For example, on previous systems, when an operator opened a map of a North
American management domain, submaps for California, Texas and New York had
to be loaded into main memory -- even if the operator only wanted to see a
submap of Illinois. In addition, all submaps containing a given device
would require updating each time a device changed status or new devices
were discovered. This resulted in delays in accessing submaps, as well a
reduction in the amount of available CPU and main memory.

A Flexible, Distributed Solution That Adapts to Customers' Evolving IT
Organizations

With today's powerful enhancements, Network Node Manager now can give
customers the flexibility to manage more diverse and more interdependent
networks. Network Node Manager's flexibility allows customers to install a
network-management solution that fits their evolving IT organizations
instead of forcing the IT organization to accommodate the management
solution. Some of these organizational models now supported by Network
Node Manager include centralized, hierarchical and peer-to-peer network
management.

In a centralized network-management model, a customer's primary concern is
managing a very large number of devices -- at multiple sites across the
country or around the world -- from one central site. New Network Node
Manager features, such as distribution, distributed consoles, improved
filtering and On-demand Submaps, which allow users to effectively deploy a
centralized management model without overburdening operators at the
central site.

In a hierarchical network-management model, customers face the challenge of
coordinating the efforts of both central and remote IT management
personnel located throughout the company. Through Network Node Manager's
distributed functionality, a remote site can fully manage its own domain,
as well as cooperate with central IT on a planned or on an ad-hoc basis.

In a peer-to-peer network-management model, two or more sites are
responsible for managing their own domains as well as for providing
management backup for the other domain(s). Through Network Node Manager's
distribution and filtering capabilities, customers now can share
management responsibilities between these primary and backup sites.

In addition, as announced on March 4, HP plans to port Network Node Manager
to Windows NT, with shipments scheduled to begin during the second half of
1996. At first release, customers will be able to deploy Network Node
Manager on Windows NT as a site or domain manager within Network Node
Manager's new distributed architecture, with full capabilities to send
collected discovery and topology information to a Network Node Manager
server running a UNIX operating system.

Network Node Manager now also gives users and developers the flexibility to
incorporate third-party solutions written to either the new SNMP v2c or
SNMP v1 standards.

New Network Node Manager Functionality Empowers System Operators

HP recently announced that it has expanded the HP OpenView Solution
Framework to fully empower system operators. Announced on Feb. 12, HP
OpenView OperationsCenter and HP OpenView AdminCenter have expanded to
completely incorporate the new, fully distributed Network Node Manager
announced today. The resulting products, HP OpenView IT/Operations and HP
OpenView IT/Administration, now give system managers much- needed
network-management functionality and take advantage of Network Node
Manager's new distributed capability.

U.S. Prices and Availability

HP OpenView Network Node Manager 4.1 starts at $15,995. In addition, HP's
Entry Network Node Manager also is shipping immediately with the new
distributed functionality. It starts at $4,995. This additional version
will still find and map as many network devices as desired, but monitoring
and other management functions are limited to those 100 devices for which
operators require active management.

HP OpenView Network Node Manager for Windows NT, including distributed
functionality, is expected to be available in the second half of 1996.

About HP OpenView

HP OpenView offers users integrated network, system, application and
database management for multivendor distributed-computing environments.
Solutions consist of a broad portfolio of management products from HP and
OpenView Solution Partners and a complete set of services that help
customers improve service and reduce operations costs. The HP OpenView
Solution Framework provides services to application developers for the
complete management of distributed networks, systems, applications and
databases. HP OpenView manages Novell NetWare and Windows NT servers and
PCs, and HP, IBM, Sun Microsystems, NCR, Bull, Silicon Graphics, Sequent
and Digital Equipment Corporation computers.

HP is the largest producer of enterprise network-management platforms, with
HP OpenView installed in more than 100,000 networks around the world.
There are more than 220 complementary HP OpenView-based management
solutions available on a variety of platforms, including HP 9000 systems,
Sun Microsystems Solaris and SunOS workstations and Microsoft Windows
NT-based systems. HP OpenView is licensed to NCR, Data General, Hitachi,
Groupe Bull, Alcatel, Siemens and Stratus.

Hewlett-Packard Company is a leading global manufacturer of computing,
communications and measurement products and services recognized for
excellence in quality and support. HP has 105,200 employees and had
revenue of $31.5 billion in its 1995 fiscal year.

Information about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at
http://www.hp.com.
 
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