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General Information
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December 28, 2007
• Vol.29 Issue 52
Page(s) 23 in print issue
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Industrial-Strength Customer Support
OPNET’s Application & Network Management
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 Imagine a multinational enterprise that relies heavily upon Web applications for its business. Visualize, moreover, that performance issues with one of these Web applications begins to affect customer access to information and services.
As many CIOs and network managers understand instinctively and intimately, the process of identifying and resolving performance problems that involve sophisticated, multitier applications can be extremely difficult indeed; the process at times can be akin to searching for the proverbial “needle in a haystack.”
 OPNET To The Rescue
OPNET Technologies (www.opnet.com), headquartered in Bethesda, Md., helps organizations identify and resolve performance issues. The publicly held company was incorporated in 1986 and is an industry-leading provider of solutions for managing networks and applications.
OPNET specializes in producing and supporting proprietary software that helps enterprises to address APM (application performance management) issues, network operations, capacity management, and network research and development. Susan Cole, vice president of marketing and business development for OPNET, characterizes end-to-end customer support as the key element that differentiates OPNET from its competition.
“A key competitive differentiator for OPNET is our focus on full application and infrastructure life cycle,” says Cole. “Optimizing a solution or avoiding a problem before an application, network change, or server consolidation is implemented saves time and money and accelerates successful IT initiatives.”
Cole continues, “We provide superior solutions for troubleshooting problems that affect successful application and service delivery in a production environment, and we leverage the same underlying technology to assess and optimize them prior to deployment or change.”
OPNET Product Portfolio
According to Cole, OPNET offers three software solutions portfolios to enterprises:
Application Performance Management (aka APM). Products include ACE and ACE Live, which provide for end-user experience monitoring, real-time network analytics, and proactive detection of application response time problems for faster diagnosis and resolution.
Capacity Management. Products include IT Guru Network Planner and IT Guru Systems Planner, which enable organizations to accelerate application deployments; avoid risks associated with infrastructure growth, consolidation, and change; optimize network and server capacity; and plan for server virtualization.
Network Operations. Products include IT Sentinel and IT Netcop, which automate network configuration; visualize real-time topology, traffic, and status in a single view; accelerate network troubleshooting; and increase the productivity of network operations staff.
Timeframe for application solution deployment is a principle purchasing consideration for most network managers. To this end, Cole is optimistic regarding OPNET’s offerings. “Our end-user decision support software, such as ACE, does not require any assistance with setup,” she says. “Users can have the software up and running in a few hours—often much less. The same is true for ACE Live.”
A Focus On Training
APM, capacity management, and network operations software represent just one way in which OPNET helps its customers improve their productivity. According to Cole, “OPNET also provides world-class consulting services, leveraging our domain expertise and extensive intellectual property to deliver custom software solutions, as well as product customization, integration, and implementation.”
“We provide free, live, lab-based training at OPNET facilities around the world to customers who purchase product maintenance,” says Cole. By her definition, “product maintenance” encompasses 24x7 email and telephone technical support, bug fixes, and product updates. “OPNET also delivers customized and onsite instructor-led training for a fee,” adds Cole.
Cole notes that OPNET offers nearly 100 Webinars every year, many of which provide instruction in workflow creation and management. “Our technical support team provides usage as well as more typical defect support—we are happy to help a customer hone their skills or learn how to take advantage of features that are new to them,” Cole says.
OPNET’s focus on training culminates in both regularly scheduled regional user meetings and an annual technology conference named OPNETWORK. “At OPNETWORK, we offer extensive hands-on training. In August, more than 2,000 participants attended more than 700 hours of tutorials, panel sessions, and labs,” says Cole.
Diversity Of Clientele
OPNET’s proximity to Washington, D.C., and its diverse product suite lend the company to a wide variety in its client base. “We are pleased to cite many small to medium-sized enterprises [SMEs] among our users,” says Cole. “We have a broad customer base, including corporate and government enterprises, defense agencies and contractors, network service providers, and network equipment manufacturers.”
Nevertheless, regardless of where its clients are located geographically, OPNET’s technical support team provides targeted assistance to meet their customers’ application and network management needs.
“We recently launched an exciting new service called STAR 24 (Special Team for Application Responsiveness) that provides rapid response troubleshooting of application performance problems,” Cole explains. “For a fixed fee, OPNET will dispatch expert consultants to a customer site within 24 hours of receiving the service order. If OPNET is unable to successfully identify the root cause of the problem, then the full service fee is waived.”
Another common question from potential OPNET clients concerns the software’s operating system flexibility and minimum system requirements. To this end, Cole states, “Our solutions are supported on both Microsoft Windows and Linux, and most are also supported running in popular virtualized server environments.”
“A typical desktop or laptop configuration supports our server- and appliance-based solutions effectively. For example, a computer or appliance with a 2GHz processor, 1 to 2GB RAM, and a 30 to 40GB hard drive is acceptable,” says Cole.
Cole also describes OPNET’s software licensing model. “Our end-user decision support tools, such as ACE and IT Guru Systems Planner, are licensed per seat; that is, a single license can be shared among multiple users but not concurrently. Server- and appliance-based solutions are licensed per instance, such as IT Sentinel and ACE Live.”
Customer-Driven Focus
“Every company says they are customer-focused, and most really believe they are,” Cole says. “I myself have never seen an organization that is as customer-driven as is OPNET. The feedback we continually receive from our clients bears this out.” 
by Timothy L. Warner
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