News

Mercury optimizes J2EE delivery, management

• By Jack Vaughan
• May 19, 2003

Mercury Interactive Corp. this week announced Optane for J2EE, a software family intended to optimize the performance of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) applications. Optane for J2EE is said to span the entire application life cycle, covering all phases of application delivery and management.

The software provides bottom-down testing of complete applications, as well as testing of individual EJB components. Configuration tuning, capacity assessment, application fault management and application code diagnostics are also part of the package. In addition, the software supports business process scripting, agent-less monitors and J2EE application instrumentation.

The timing of this announcement nearly coincides with the planned closing of Veritas Software's acquisition of J2EE performance specialist Precise Software. When the $537 million deal was disclosed late last year, ADT had reported, officials promised a second quarter closing, with hopes that the process would be completed by mid-May 2003. With the purchase, Veritas hopes to improve its competitive position versus Mercury in Java and other spaces.

Mercury has supported J2EE app server performance management before. Company products measure and monitor Oracle, Sun and other Java app servers. What is new?

"What's new is that we are launching an entire product line targeting one technology, that is J2EE," said Zohar Gilad, vice president of products at Mercury Interactive.

The Optane offering cuts time-to-problem resolution, Gilad indicated, digging deeper into performance data to pinpoint problems. Optane's consoles also offer different views based on the different roles individuals play in the real-time enterprise.

Optane for J2EE includes technology from Mercury Interactive laboratories and performance diagnostics technology from the recently acquired Performant, Inc. Mercury bought Performant last week, paying $22.5 million in cash.

The Performant purchase brings Mercury technology and expertise in J2EE diagnostics, Gilad told ADT. The software "can 'peel the onion' to methods and code, and tell you what is going wrong," he said. The purchase of Performant has use beyond J2EE, Gilad added.