For Immediate Release

Unify Announces First Client/Server Tools to Automate
Creation of Managed Applications
Contacts
Ellen Urgell            Tony Lacy-Thompson.
UpStart Communications		Unify Corp.
(510) 420-7975			     (408) 467-4526
eurgell@upstart.com		    tony@unify.com

Unify Announces First Client/Server Tools to Automate
Creation of Managed Applications

New AppMan agents link VISION applications to leading management systems from BMC Software, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Tivoli

AppMan is the first client/server development tool that takes a comprehensive approach to all key requirements of application management from within the development environment. AppMan uses intelligent software agents to provide VISION applications with transparent links to the growing third-party management infrastructure already taking hold in client/server environments. AppMan also embeds management intelligence into every VISION application while giving developers a large number of new automated turnkey functions to support such critical tasks as software distribution, event management, and performance management.

"Application management is the greatest unmet need facing mission-critical, client/server deployments," said John Rymer, vice president of the Patricia Seybold Group. "It's time for client/server developers to address management directly, not simply toss their applications over the wall and let network and system management professionals struggle to keep them up and running. Unify understands these issues very clearly and is delivering real solutions today - not promises."

Application management must be addressed from within the development environment, according to Reza Mikailli, Unify's president and chief executive officer. "It's the developers who understand how the applications need to be configured, what specific events and responses can prevent a system failure, which performance thresholds are most significant - and now for the first time they can easily embed that intelligence directly in their applications using AppMan for VISION."

Creating management-ready applications
Just as VISION has automated much of the programming associated with building GUIs, accessing databases, and building and partitioning application logic, AppMan now automates all of the programming associated with making them management- ready, as well. For example, over 400 built-in system and application events (such as errors, time-outs, unavailability of servers and services) are automatically collected by AppMan for all VISION-built applications and available for forwarding to any event management system. Thus, all VISION applications are automatically event- management ready without any additional programming.

Avoiding the proprietary approach being proposed by some tool vendors, Unify built AppMan using an open architecture with intelligent agents that enable IT organizations to manage their VISION-built applications using any preferred management system - or different systems at different sites. AppMan also includes a custom agent toolkit that enables developers to quickly build agents for management systems not yet supported by Unify.

Leading system management vendors enthusiastic
Systems management vendors are lauding Unify's pioneering approach. "PATROL supports a wide spectrum of off-the-shelf databases, operating systems and applications, but typically developers of in-house software have to start from scratch to build the modules necessary to integrate with our PATROL system," said Leland Putterman, BMC Software's vice president of worldwide marketing. "Unify is the first client/server tool vendor to provide turnkey integration with PATROL, substantially easing the task of building management-ready applications."

"Application management is a key component in managing today's truly distributed client/server environments and we are excited about working with Unify in two areas to help our customers address this issue," said Scott Harmon, vice president and general manager of application management products at Tivoli Systems. "First, Unify is making great strides in enabling applications management through the AppMan product and we are pleased they are supporting the Tivoli Management Environment in the first release. Second, Unify is assisting us in developing the Applications Management Specification, which provides a standard, open mechanism for creating management-ready applications. Our collective goal is to specify and transfer information between a development environment and a management system, thus bridging the gap between developers and system administrators."

"IT Managers need a clear picture of client/server application resource utilization and response times in order to ensure service levels, but much of the required instrumentation should be built directly into the application software," said John Peters, Hewlett-Packard product line manager for resource and performance management software. "Rather than forcing the application developer to custom program their application for resource and performance management, Unify's AppMan provides out-of-the-box integration with our MeasureWare agent, which is fast becoming the de facto standard for resource and performance management. For the VISION developer, it's more like checking a box than coding to an API."

All key requirements of client/server application management addressed
AppMan release 1 provides complete management solutions for four of the six major areas of application management, and agent-based integrations with several leading management systems:

• Centralized event management with agents for Tivoli/Enterprise Console, BMC Software's PATROL, and SNMP-based management tools.
  
• Performance management with agents for H-P MeasureWare, BMC Software's PATROL, and SNMP-based management tools.
  
• Software distribution with agents for Microsoft SMS and Tivoli Courier.
  
• Administration -- in its first release, the graphical AppMan console provides all the necessary controls to manage VISION application partitions and servers. In its next release, the console will be enhanced to include a baseline set of event management and performance management capabilities.

Event management: Built-in events automate management programming
AppMan makes VISION the first client/server development tool with an event management API and agent-based integrations with leading event management systems. AppMan release 1 incorporates agents for the Tivoli/Enterprise Console and BMC Software's PATROL, as well as integration with SNMP-based management tools, enabling these systems to collect, process and automatically initiate corrective actions to application events.

To make the developer's task even easier, AppMan also comes loaded with a comprehensive set of 400 pre-defined events that are automatically monitored within VISION applications and available for filtering and forwarding to these systems. Application developers can also quickly define their own application-specific events, (e.g., thresholds) using VISION 4GL.

AppMan's application-generated events provide systems managers with a much higher-level view than systems- or network-level events, enabling them to see causes, rather than mere symptoms, which are much easier to interpret and respond to. Furthermore, there are many critical events that only the application can recognize (e.g., data inconsistencies). By seeing clearly and directly how their actual business operations are being affected, systems administrators can take more rapid and focused corrective actions.

Performance management: Turnkey metrics monitor service levels and response times
AppMan makes a science out of what has been more an art in the area of performance monitoring, letting administrators more effectively diagnose and solve performance problems. A large set of built-in performance metrics replace the metrics provided by lower-level monitoring tools that systems administrators have previously been forced to use to monitor the responsiveness and resource utilization of their applications. In addition, developers can use these built-in performance metrics to raise events alerting administrators to service level problems. AppMan release 1 includes agents for integration with Hewlett-Packard's MeasureWare products and BMC Software's PATROL, as well as providing the metrics through an SNMP MIB.

The AppMan performance monitoring API and agents provide a wide range of resource utilization and response time metrics, including end-to-end transaction response times and the individual response times of application services and database operations used by those transactions. In the future, AppMan will provide a complete transaction timing chain made up of end-to-end response times directly correlated to individual response times of all transaction sub-components.

Software distribution: Distribution-ready applications
With AppMan, VISION becomes the first client/server development tool to address the challenges of software distribution from within the development environment by providing "distribution-ready" applications that are compatible with industry- leading electronic software distribution (ESD) systems including Microsoft SMS and Tivoli Courier. Though most system administrators consider ESD to be essential for deployment in large-scale client/server environments, the task of specifying the components needed to run an application (e.g., class libraries, configuration and parameter files) and the configurations for all target platforms remains very complex, laborious and unstandardized across the organization.

The AppMan automated Deployment Configurator guides the developer through the process of specifying file configurations for target platforms. The AppMan software distribution agents then automatically generate the application description files and distribution specifications for the system administrator's preferred ESD system. AppMan's distribution-ready applications ensure consistent, standardized and correct installation or updates of VISION applications across an enterprise.

Federal reseller's customers plan to leverage AppMan/Tivoli integration
Wang Federal, a leading reseller and systems integrator for the federal government, says some of its customers are planning to leverage the integration of VISION with the Tivoli Management Environment. "One of the greatest challenges faced by our customers is managing and supporting applications in the client/server environment", said Jim Rannazzisi, Wang Federal product manager. "Administrators are unable to track system-wide problems and messages that are generated by individual applications running on a set of distributed hosts. The AppMan and Tivoli combination provides an excellent set of tools allowing customers to manage their enterprise-level applications. "Further, Unify is the first vendor we have worked with that is addressing the issue of version control and application deployment from the development stage. In the past, developers created applications and it was up to administrators to get the software installed and operating correctly on the end-user's system. The VISION/AppMan integration with Tivoli's Courier and Microsoft's SMS software distribution products takes the burden off overworked administrators and lets the developers address the final stage of client/server software creation: deployment."

Pricing and availability
Unify AppMan for VISION release 1 will be available in February 1996, priced at $1,995 per platform per site (Unix or MS-Windows or NT). SNMP support will be available in May.

About Unify Corp.
Unify is a leading provider of advanced second generation application development tools for building and managing enterprise applications. Unify's flagship product, Unify VISION™ , combines the flexibility and ease-of-use of graphical client/server with the capability and performance requirements of enterprise level applications. VISION provides an automated graphical rapid application development environment, advanced application partitioning, and integrated application management capabilities.

Headquartered in San Jose, California, Unify has direct sales offices throughout North America, Europe and Japan, with a network of distributors, VARs, OEMs, and systems integrators worldwide. Unify's products include Unify VISION, ACCELL/SQL™ , and UNIFY DataServer™ family of products. Unify has over 350,000 users worldwide, including leaders in telecommunications, financial services, commercial industries and government.