Business service management software vendor Zyrion has introduced its Traverse solution to the reseller channel, giving solution providers a new way to offer customers real-time visibility into and analysis of the performance of their IT services.

Though network management itself isn’t new, disruptive technologies such as distributed computing, unified communications and virtualization and the growing cloud computing push on the horizon have resulted in increased complexity in corporate networks, says Vikas Aggarwal, president and founder of Zyrion.

“With so many applications and so much traffic to monitor and manage, traditional network monitoring systems just can’t keep up,” says Aggarwal. One of the main challenges in trying to apply legacy network monitoring software to next-generation networks is that traditional solutions focus on the wrong area, he says.

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"We talk a lot about BSM, but what that really means is a focus on the services provided by applications in a data center,” he says. “If a server goes down, it doesn’t impact the user much because data centers include load balancers. But if your database goes down, that really impacts the services and information that’s available to the user.”

And if users aren’t able to receive services—or even if the quality of service is lowered—it can negatively impact a company’s business. Traverse gives solution providers the ability to monitor and manage services delivery and quality of service, which enables their customers to better serve end users.

“Our correlated services-related view lets solution providers see how customers’ services—like VOIP, Web applications, etc.—are working,” Aggarwal says. “Traverse tells you when specific devices and infrastructure components are down, but also tells which business processes are impacted and how that affects the end customer.”

The Traverse solution is simple to install, and can be deployed in just a few hours and managed by a small number of staff, Aggarwal says. This gives solution provides higher margins and increased efficiency and utilization rates, he says.  

Aggarwal says Traverse is compatible with about 90 percent of data center infrastructure vendors’ products, which means the solution is a fit for nearly any customer. He says that while big vendors like Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Computer Associates and smaller firms like SolarWinds offer competing solutions, none are targeted toward the midmarket and smaller enterprises.

“The market we’re going after is in between that of high-cost, complex enterprise solutions from HP, IBM and CA and low-cost tools for SMBs from SolarWinds or WhatsUp,” Aggarwal says.

Pricing starts at about $100,000, aimed squarely at midmarket customers, he says. In addition, the solution is a good fit for verticals such as education and/or health care, in which organizations may have the size and scale of a large enterprise, but must work within much smaller budgets.

Currently, Zyrion has 10 to 15 regionally distributed channel partners and is recruiting from the ranks of "traditional" networking and data center VARs, including many Cisco partners with network, storage and server expertise. Aggarwal says Zyrion is being selective about which partners it’ll work with in a proactive attempt to avoid potential channel conflict.

“The channel is absolutely essential in this market segment,” he says. “We have to make sure each channel partner gets the attention and support they deserve.”