Micromuse Inc. (Nasdaq: MUSE), the leading provider of ultra-scalable, realtime business and service assurance software today announced enhanced integration and visualization between its Netcool® operations management console and Netcool/NeuSecure®, the security information and event management (SIEM) solution acquired from GuardedNet Inc., in 2005. Combining Netcool’s service assurance solution with the Netcool/NeuSecure product provides organizations with unparalleled clarity of the realtime availability, performance, and security of critical services delivered over their technology infrastructure.

Micromuse’s Netcool management software provides a total service assurance solution spanning availability, performance, and security. The combination of the broader Netcool suite with Netcool/NeuSecure gives users greater operations intelligence, service visualization, and robust integration between network and security operations centers (the NOC and SOC) to help them make more informed decisions about their networks and services. The integrated solution enables staff to identify the impact of security events and to understand how they relate to other service-affecting events across the infrastructure. This, in turn, helps them to prioritize their problem-solving activities for increased service assurance, and allows CTOs to improve overall operations, maximize uptime, and guarantee customer satisfaction.

“Enterprises and service providers require integrated network and security operations to guarantee business and service assurance, and to prevent disruption or worse, denial of service. This goal cannot be achieved with security and network operations silos,” said Andreas Antonopoulos, Senior Vice President and Founding Partner, Nemertes Research Inc. “Across all industry verticals, operations groups must have an integrated response to both network and security events, just as they must integrate management of voice and data on their converged networks. Integration enables IT operations teams to have a more tightly integrated NOC and SOC that will determine the root-cause of an event, be flexible enough to re-classify the problem as it is handled, resolve the problem by applying any and all security, system or network skills, and then improve policies and procedures across the organization as a result of lessons learned.”

The integration allows operations staff to exchange security incidents originating in Netcool/NeuSecure with Netcool’s consolidated database, where the data is correlated and analyzed along with fault, performance, and availability information from applications and systems across the organization. This information is then presented via Netcool dashboards. The combination brings deep, security-related insight to the NOC while enabling 24×7, end-to-end coverage that a security management system alone cannot provide.

“To ensure the integrity of services within today’s corporate environment there is a growing need for cooperation between the team that determines security policies (SOC) and the team who implements them throughout the technology infrastructure (NOC),” said Craig Farrell, Micromuse CTO. “Greater interoperability between Micromuse’s Netcool suite and the Netcool/NeuSecure SIEM platform provides an approach by which administrators can view and access IT data from both a NOC and SOC perspective.”

Additionally, the integrated Netcool solutions provide a common collection layer that saves customers time when deploying and maintaining collection capabilities. It also extends Netcool/NeuSecure’s ability to be readily scalable to manage the world’s biggest and most complex infrastructures. Users of Netcool/NeuSecure are able to seamlessly tap into the extended Netcool database, leveraging their investment by using the same event data stream for both security analysis and fault management, or for use in other Netcool applications they have deployed, including performance and business service management solutions.

The integrated Netcool solution is available now; demo and screen shots are available upon request at [email protected].

For more information on the issue of integrating network and security operations centers for a unified approach to enabling greater business processes and preventing major disruption, please read All Together Now, Integrating Event Response by Andreas Antonopoulos, Senior Vice President and Founding Partner, Nemertes Research Inc. To read the paper, go to: http://www.micromuse.com/downloads/pdf_lit/wps/Nemertes_Issue_Paper_Integrating_Event_Response.pdf (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

Visit Micromuse at the RSA Conference on February 13-17, 2006 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, Booth 1623.

About Netcool/NeuSecure
Netcool/NeuSecure provides a centralized security event monitoring and response platform for log aggregation, event correlation, threat analysis, threat response and forensic investigation of the enormous quantities of security event data in heterogeneous enterprise, government and service provider networks. It correlates log data files from disparate machines such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, computer systems and routers and automatically analyzes this data to uncover legitimate threats to the enterprise. Netcool/NeuSecure allows security analysts to prioritize their investigations and focus on the mission-critical task of responding to threats as they are occurring, rather than after the damage is done. And with Netcool/NeuSecure a security team can manage threats from early detection to final resolution without ever leaving the intuitive, Web-based console.

About Micromuse
Micromuse Inc. (Nasdaq: MUSE) is the leading provider of ultra-scalable, realtime business and service assurance software solutions. The Netcool® software suite provides organizations with the assurance that their IT systems are supporting and driving profits 24 hours a day. Unlike traditional infrastructure management systems, Netcool solutions provide realtime end-to-end visibility and accurate troubleshooting from a business perspective. Such business intelligence allows organizations to respond to problems quickly, streamline workflow processes and improve business uptime. Micromuse customers include BT, Cable & Wireless, Deutsche Telekom, EarthLink, ITC^DeltaCom, JPMorgan Chase, MCI, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Headquarters are located at 650 Townsend Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94103; (415) 568-9800. The Web site is at www.micromuse.com.