AUSTIN, TX--(Marketwire - Feb 15, 2012) - SolarWinds® (NYSE: [ SWI ]) continues to deliver powerful [ IT management software ] products at competitive prices with today's release of SolarWinds [ Synthetic End User Monitor ] (SeUM) v. 1.5. SeUM allows system administrators and application support staff to monitor response time proactively for multi-step web transactions. The latest version of SeUM introduces the Cloud Player Portal that allows users to deploy transaction players easily to Amazon® EC2. This enables monitoring from various cloud-based locations without the necessity of paying the expensive subscriptions required by other vendors for their SaaS offerings.

"Our customers want control over their monitoring infrastructure and they want to monitor web user experience from all over the world," Denny LeCompte, vice president of product management at SolarWinds, said. "The new SeUM cloud capability fulfills both of these needs; unlike existing solutions in the market, we enable customers to leverage the cloud directly, without paying a high price for what is fundamentally a very simple service."

New Features in v. 1.5

• Cloud Player Portal: Easily deploys transaction players to Amazon® EC2 to enable [ web transaction monitoring ] from cloud-based locations and does not require users to pay subscription fees
• Multi-Tenant UI: Monitors website and web application performance for large deployments or in MSP environments
• Rich Content Recording and Playback: Record and playback dynamic web pages to include support for Flash® and Silverlight®; also validates the existence or absence of text and other website content
• Firewall-Friendly Communication: Transaction players make their monitoring data available for polling from the SeUM server, eliminating any need to open in-bound Firewall connections

Key Features

• Truly Easy-to-Use Recorder: Intuitive, multi-step transaction recorder enables complex recordings with no professional services
• Simple Interface: Delivers at-a-glance insight into the duration and success of web transactions
• Competitive Pricing

SeUM Enables Sysadmins to:

• Monitor Websites and Web Applications: Continual monitoring of user experience and response time for any application with a web user interface
• Alert and Report on Individual Steps: Measure and alert on the latency of each discrete step in a recording, taking screenshots of the exact step that failed
• Playback Recordings from Multiple Locations: Multiple location playback gives insight into the global user experience

Synthetic End User Monitor is part of SolarWinds [ systems management ] product portfolio that together addresses the troubleshooting, patch management, and performance monitoring needs of the system administrator. This includes [ Server & Application Monitor ] (SAM) -- formerly Application Performance Monitor (APM) -- and three new products: [ Patch Manager ], [ DameWare NT Utilities ], and [ DameWare Mini Remote Control ].

While SAM monitors servers and applications from the bottom up, SeUM monitors websites and web applications from the top down. Together, they help the sysadmin understand system status from both points of view to troubleshoot quickly and accurately.

SolarWinds also offers Web Transaction Watcher, a free tool that can playback one recording at a time. Any recording made on [ Web Transaction Watcher ] can be reused in Synthetic End User Monitor.

Analyst Reactions

"EMA sees this as an important announcement, for SolarWinds, its customers, and its prospects. It puts a quality APM solution within reach of almost any company, providing a good entry point for APM monitoring that can grow along with a company's expanding application portfolio," said Julie Craig at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA).

"IT professionals are now responsible for monitoring between dozens and hundreds of applications for their internal clients, and many of those live in the cloud," said Bojan Simic at TRAC Research. "The ability to monitor any transaction on the web, as well as transactions from a player that's hosted on Amazon® EC2 will help IT pros ensure their key applications are running smoothly."

Pricing and Availability
SolarWinds [ Synthetic End User Monitor ] is available now; pricing starts at $1,995 for five transaction recordings with the first year of maintenance included. Monitoring unlimited transaction recordings from unlimited locations is $28,995 with no requirement for professional services, onsite training or recurring monthly subscription fees.

For more information, visit the [ SolarWinds website ], download a free 30-day evaluation, or call 866.530.8100.

Related:
[ Synthetic End User Monitor 1.5 - Ushering in a cloud revolution ] (Product blog)

About SolarWinds
SolarWinds (NYSE: [ SWI ]) provides powerful and affordable IT management software to customers worldwide -- from Fortune 500 enterprises to small businesses. We work to put our users first and remove the obstacles that have become "status quo" in traditional enterprise software. SolarWinds products are downloadable, easy to use and maintain, and provide the power, scale, and flexibility needed to address users' management priorities. Our online user community, [ thwack ], is a gathering-place where tens of thousands of IT pros solve problems, share technology, and participate in product development for all of SolarWinds' products. Learn more today at [ http://www.solarwinds.com/ ].

SolarWinds, SolarWinds.com, thwack and the SolarWinds logo are registered trademarks of SolarWinds. All other company and product names mentioned are used only for identification purposes and may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.