BlueStripe emerges from stealth-mode; launches factfinder & ASM for Virtual Infrastructure!

BlueStripe Software Unveils Industry’s First Solution Dedicated to Bringing World-Class Application Service Management to Virtual Data Center Environments

BlueStripe, founded by systems management professionals from Wily Technology and

IBM/Tivoli, emerges from stealth mode to solve the “next big problem” in application management

RTP, N.C. – September 8, 2008 – BlueStripe Software, the industry’s first provider of Application Service Management (ASM) solutions for virtualized data center environments, today announced the official launch of operations and its first commercial product, FactFinder. FactFinder is the industry’s only solution to enable enterprises to stage, deploy, and manage business-critical applications in virtual data center environments with the same degree of confidence and control as traditional environments. FactFinder gives IT departments the visibility they need to efficiently manage application performance and availability in virtualized data center environments by mapping physical and virtual environments for a thorough understanding of applications and their interdependencies. (See Release: BlueStripe Software Introduces Industry’s First Application Service Management Solution for Virtualized Data Center Environments)

“The next phase in virtualization adoption will necessitate insight and intelligence at the application level – and even more importantly at the business service level,” said John Humphreys, program vice president in IDC’s Enterprise Platform Group. “By connecting the ability to monitor business services to the infrastructure control afforded to customers via virtualization, BlueStripe is closing the feedback loop and enabling customers to actively manage service levels via insight into the applications and control of the virtualized infrastructure.”

Enabling Virtualization with Application Service Management

While virtualization has received an enormous amount of publicity, few organizations today deploy business-critical applications in virtualized environments. The reason for this is simple: no management tools exist today that enable IT staff to guarantee the performance and reliability demanded by these applications.

This problem has impeded the progress of virtualization in the data center because enterprises have typically only deployed virtualized servers to support non-critical systems. This trend is validated by research firm IDC, which estimates that fewer than 10 percent of data centers are currently virtualized. FactFinder, the first in a suite of application service management tools from BlueStripe that enables organizations to confidently deploy business-critical applications in virtualized environments, was built in partnership with virtualization industry leader, VMware.

“The move to virtual environments has created a major shift in IT requirements on how to roll-out and manage business applications,” said Chris Neal, founder and CEO of BlueStripe Software. “The applications team, along with IT Operations, requires insight into the all the facts regarding their mission-critical applications. Our founding team at BlueStripe played a major role in solving the application management problems brought about by the advent of client/server and Internet-based computing. Now, our mission is to improve the way companies manage applications and we’re solving the next big problem – application service management across all servers, both physical and virtual.”

“We have seen the potential benefits of virtualization dissipated by ineffective management tools – especially silo-based tools that prevent quality service delivery, directly extend downtime and other problems,” said Andi Mann, research director, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). “Therefore, integrated performance management is one key management technology that drives straight to the heart of many virtualization goals, and overcomes the significant problems of silo-based management. BlueStripe connects the pieces intelligently, providing a holistic view to improve application management.”

Experienced Management Team and Founders Leading Company

BlueStripe is led by a seasoned executive team that has built some of the industry’s leading enterprise application management companies, including Wily Technology, Relicore, Computer Associates, and IBM/Tivoli:

Chris Neal, CEO, has over 14 years of enterprise software leadership experience, including positions at NetDynamics, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems. Prior to BlueStripe, he was vice president of field operations for the Americas at Wily Technology, a provider of enterprise application management solutions.
Vic Nyman, COO, has over twenty years of enterprise software experience in various leadership and executive roles, including positions at IBM/Tivoli and Wily Technology. Prior to BlueStripe, he was Chairman and CEO of Relicore, an application change and configuration management company which was acquired by Symantec.
John Bley, Chief Architect, was a principal engineer at Wily Technology and one of the key individuals responsible for the core Wily product architecture.
John Whittington, vice president of business development, has over 15 years of enterprise software sales and business development experience.

World-Class Investors

BlueStripe is backed by world-class venture investors, including Trinity Ventures. Noel Fenton, the founder of Trinity Ventures, is also a member of BlueStripe’s board of directors.

BlueStripe Software will be exhibiting at VMworld 2008 (booth #347), September 15-18, in Las Vegas. Press and industry analysts interested in meeting with BlueStripe Software should contact Toni Iafrate at bluestripe@daviesmurphy.com to schedule a briefing.

About BlueStripe Software

BlueStripe Software is the industry’s first provider of Application Service Management (ASM) solutions for virtualized data center environments. BlueStripe’s flagship product suite, FactFinder, eliminates the barriers to migrating and managing business-critical applications on virtual server platforms. Based in Research Triangle Park area in Morrisville, NC, BlueStripe is led by an executive team that has built some of the industry’s leading enterprise application management companies, including Wily Technology, Relicore, Computer Associates and IBM/Tivoli. For additional information, please visit www.bluestripe.com.

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BlueStripe Software Introduces Industry’s First

Application Service Management Solution for Virtualized Data Center Environments

FactFinder™ enables enterprises to stage, deploy and manage business-critical applications in

virtual server environments with confidence, control, and efficiency

FactFinder bridges the gap between enterprise applications and the new virtual environments on which they are being deployed. It gives IT support teams the management visibility, the tools to measure, and the ability to triage their critical business applications during physical to virtual (P2V) conversions, application staging, and production deployment.

“Many IT organizations are now beyond the early stages of their server virtualization projects and are ramping up both the levels of consolidation as well as the move to virtualize mission critical applications,” said Cameron Haight, research vice president, Gartner, Inc. “In order to ensure that performance does not suffer as a consequence, end users involved in these projects should look for tools to help identify and diagnose potential application performance bottlenecks whose source could originate from either the virtual or physical environment.”

Resolving one the biggest challenges facing today’s virtualized data centers, FactFinder delivers three critical elements of application service management for virtual environments:

· Application Discovery & Mapping – FactFinder offers automatic discovery and topology mapping of the application connections, processes, and interdependencies allowing for unmatched visibility into both physical and virtual environments.

· Application-level Health Measurement – By enabling simple drill down into performance indicators of connections, usage, and application access times, FactFinder depicts the relative health of a business’ critical applications.

· Automatic Triage of Application & Server Problems – FactFinder’s easy to understand performance indicators highlight areas of concern, showing where to focus efforts to solve problems and optimize the supporting IT environment.

Don Sturdivant, SVP and Chief Technology Officer of Square 1 Bank, a full service commercial bank dedicated exclusively to serving the financial needs of the venture capital community and entrepreneurs in all stages of growth and expansion, explained, “BlueStripe’s FactFinder provides comprehensive application visibility, with the ability to drill down into very detailed information, enabling our application virtualization efforts. Their vision of Application Service Management coincides with our current and future needs very well.”

FactFinder is the only application management solution that enables enterprises to confidently deploy business-critical applications in virtualized environments. This makes it easy for infrastructure groups to gain visibility into application management and performance in virtual data center environments, including service response times, virtual machine utilization, and cross-server dependencies. Unlike OS-based or network-based monitoring products, FactFinder measures performance across multi-tier and service-oriented architecture applications regardless of whether they are distributed across clusters of ESX hypervisors or a mix of physical and virtual environments. This allows enterprises to measure the impact of P2V conversions on business success and make decisions based on intelligent, accurate, and timely information.

“FactFinder eliminates ‘IT guesswork’ by providing real data on the entire application – a first for the virtualized data center environment,” said Chris Neal, co founder and CEO of BlueStripe Software. “This includes real-time and historical data, information on connections and performance, availability of resources, complete mapping and more. With this understanding, IT administrators can finally move business-critical applications to virtualized data centers knowing they will perform as expected, enabling companies to pursue more extensive virtualization plans.”

According to research firm IDC, fewer than 10 percent of data centers are currently virtualized. The lack of management tools is one reason why more data centers have not migrated to virtualized environments. For this reason, FactFinder promises to accelerate the adoption of server virtualization worldwide. This is also one of the reasons why VMWare, the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, has partnered with BlueStripe in development of FactFinder.

About BlueStripe Software

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