The little screen shots below don't do the application justice, but give you an idea how presentable business systems management information can be. CEO Steven Cotton, left, is justifiably proud of his Huntington Beach CA company's showing at Interop Las Vegas.
First of all, a FireScope is a jeweler's appliance that makes a diamond's flaws readily apparent, and it is that sense that FireScope, the BSM appliance company makes network flaws readily apparent.
Leveraging Ajax web technologies (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) and open source projects, the company went from series A funding to shipping product in only a few months. At the heart of the company's implementation is a network management appliance, extensive software technologies to package the solution as an easy to operate service and a maximum of five days of systems integration service (to be provided by resellers and systems integrators) to implement the product correctly, train administrators and train users. The FireScope appliance simply correlates data, aggregates data for presentation and reports it.
It's a powerful approach to making the link between network infrastructure performance and business results. Other network management appliances (Netcordia, WildPackets) capture scores more data and are appropriate for troubleshooting applications by skilled network engineers while the FireScope offers a more comprehensive real-time information management style for ongoing monitoring of complex multi-level IT systems including the application. So we can see servers, switches, routers, physical links, firewalls and the like to develop a comprehensive graphical business overview.
Although initially focused on IT resources, the solution offers the potential to give a business manager (say the ABM product manager in a bank) the instantaneous overview of all their system components, logically grouped and automatically discovered or detailed view on any one or few components. The flexibility and power of the appliance and the presentation capabilities enables geographic mapping with Google Maps including storing key information about the location in question. Information like contact names and numbers, network configuration details and so on.
Where this fits is in organizations where that product manager in the bank can see the roadblocks to business success right before her eyes, and can manage the network service in real-time. The following screen shots give a sense of the presentation quality, diversity and just plain good looks.
Here the user can purview their area of business responsibility and it operational status. Note that color settings for problem severity are administrator defined.
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Dashboard – an overview to the business process and operation. |
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Availability – users can drill down to assess the network or application components that are causing the service outaage.
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Performance – the use of color and needle or thermometer indicators enable information-rich presentations. |
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GoogleMaps – users can use Googlemaps to define a geographic context to the network and business operation. |
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Report Maker – users can create their own reports. |
Leveraging the mashup capabilities of Ajax implementations where users can integrate various web-based applications into a single, unique and personal presentation, FireScope takes system management, network management and business management to another level. Although the company has 10 customers to-date, it is clear that their disruptive value proposition delivers far more for far less than the classic and better known brands.
I'm expecting to see big things from this company in the coming months, because often the applications that show well, sell well and this application shows well.
