AlarmPoint is an automated event notification and resolution platform that delivers events to appropriate personnel in a granular fashion (more below) and with multiple, definable controls. Direct "Integrations" are provided for multiple 3rd party monitoring and management platforms; including Blackberry Enterprise Server, and those from HP (Operations Manager, Service Manager, Network Node Manager), BMC (Remedy ITSM 7 Help Desk, Service Impact Manager, more), and IBM (Tivoli Enterprise Console, Tivoli Netcool), among others. The product is offered in Express, Standard, Professional, and Enterprise flavors; with this briefing focusing primarily on the Enterprise version of the product.

The 100% Web and Java-based platform allows for the granular definition of individuals and their attributes, towards the goal of the flexible delivery of notification messages when needed. Self-service features enable individuals to personalize their profiles with details such as their work schedules, available contact devices and methods, requested reports, etc. as well as subscribe (or be assigned) to specific alerts. Scheduling and delivery rules can be defined such that the system can perform find me/follow me functions in its effort to locate the appropriate personnel for a specific event. Such metrics as device timeframes, ordering, delays between tries to subsequent devices, and the mapping of event priorities to events can all be defined and taken into account by the notification engine, as can calendar-based work group schedules (including person-to-person escalations, automated rotations, etc.) and event-level metric overrides depending on the severity of the event.

Once a responsible party has received an event notification, they can respond to it (resolve it) via the Web, text phone, pager, Blackberry, E-mail and instant messenger. Event notifications can be delivered via a variety of message and/or voice-based mechanisms, including TAP, UCP, SNPP, SMPP, SMTP / POP, MAPI, TTS, ASR, DTMF, JABBER, GSM, and custom definitions. Personnel can take action on an event by accepting it or forwarding it; when accepted, the user can invoke any of a number of curing actions (which are preset by the users in advance of the event), such as restarting the system, increasing memory allocations, etc.

Dynamic capabilities of the platform enable the real-time transformation of event messages based on the user they are being sent to, as well as the enrichment of the messages with live contextual information. Further, the platform can additionally leverage user-attributes (such as skills or certifications) to dynamically build a group of targeted event recipients at the time the event occurs. The automated responses described above can be defined to be executed as the result of a user response or at the time of the incident.

In addition to integrated support for 3rd party monitoring platforms, AlarmPoint also supports integration with system tools such as LDAP, AD, PeopleSoft, CMDB, and others for security, authentication, data load, or other purposes. The platform's globally distributed architecture supports redundant and load-balanced deployments.

As mentioned earlier, this briefing is based on the Enterprise version of AlarmPoint. Among the key differences between this and the Standard and Professional versions are the numbers of users supported (10-100 in Standard, unlimited in Enterprise); lack of self-service alert subscription or assignment in all but the Enterprise version; support for distributed deployments (Enterprise only); and the inclusion of an advanced reporting module (Pro and Enterprise only). The new Express version of the platform is similar to the Standard version, but supports only up to 10 users and integration with only a single incident management system. Visit the vendor's site for a full list of differences.

New to the AlarmPoint product suite is the addition of the AlarmPoint Mobile Gateway, (APMG) an optional add-on module for use with the Standard, Professional, or Enterprise version of AlarmPoint. APMG enables both reception of alert notifications on mobile devices and smart phones, as well as the ability to interact with corporate applications through the mobile device for the resolution of events (management systems, monitoring apps, etc.). This latter capability is made possible via the AlarmPoint Web application server, which acts as a proxy between the user and the application.

AlarmPoint is available now. Pricing ranges from $2,500 (Express) to $150,000 depending on setup and configuration; with AlarmPoint Enterprise starting around $75,000. AlarmPoint Mobile Gateway is priced at $1,000 per user.

Visit the AlarmPoint Systems Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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