MONOSPHERE® ANNOUNCES STORAGE HORIZON 2.2

STORAGE PLANNER MODULE AUTOMATES STORAGE CAPACITY PLAN CREATION

San Francisco, CA May 15, 2006 – MonoSphere® Inc., an independent storage management software innovator, today announced the newest release of its award winning software, Storage Horizon 2.2.  The Storage Planner, a new module in Storage Horizon 2.2, automates planning for storage capacity for Global 3000 enterprises by calculating:

1. When additional storage is needed – By comparing forecasts to user definable thresholds and taking into account the time to purchase and deploy storage, the Storage Planner calculates when new storage needs to be allocated and/or purchased to stay within desired utilization levels.
2. How much storage is required – The Storage Planner calculates the optimal amount of storage to allocate in order to meet application consumption needs while staying within target utilization levels.
3. Where storage is needed – The Storage Planner specifies which host volumes are projected to approach utilization thresholds and require additional allocated storage.
4. Where the additional storage will come from – The Storage Planner determines if the required storage can come from existing unallocated storage on the storage subsystem, from the purchase of additional disk drives in existing subsystems, or from the purchase of new subsystems.

The Storage Planner module also provides the user with a financial “What If” capability which allows administrators to adjust utilization thresholds up or down and immediately see the projected financial impact on their Capital Expenditure (CapEx) budget.

“Storage Horizon brings mainframe-caliber storage capacity planning and analysis tools into open systems storage administration,” said Brad O’Neill, Senior Analyst and Consultant from the Taneja Group. “Used as part of a best-in-class process, organizations can reduce their storage infrastructure CapEx spending and increase storage administrator productivity.  Customers should find that making a compelling internal ROI argument for this product is refreshingly straightforward.”

In addition to the Storage Planner module, new capabilities in Storage Horizon 2.2 include:

• Role based user accounts – The Storage Horizon administrator can assign pre-defined roles to user accounts which determine the user’s access to different parts of the application.  The roles are Administrator, Operator, and Monitor.
• Forecasting and analysis user guidelines – Based on statistical analysis, Storage Horizon will provide feedback to the user on the cogency of their forecasts.  Parameters considered include duration of collected data, growth volatility, and possible seasonal effects.  The release also includes support for non-linear (exponential) forecasting.
• Extended support of host operating system platforms – Storage Horizon now supports discovery and collection from application hosts running HP-UX and Linux, in addition to Windows®, Solaris™, and AIX® servers and NetApp® Data ONTAP® filers.
• Extended support of applications - Storage Horizon supports storage capacity planning for Sybase® databases, in addition to Oracle® databases, MS SQL databases, and MS Exchange.

“Users are seeing immediate value from Storage Horizon to identify current and future hot spots, determine opportunities to reclaim significant unused capacity, and create a storage capacity growth plan based on actual data,” said Ray Villeneuve, MonoSphere’s chairman, president, and CEO.  “This is a major improvement over typical ad hoc processes and results in significant CapEx savings while improving the proactivity of day to day storage operations.”

MonoSphere Storage Horizon software is used by Global 3000 companies as the centerpiece of their systematic storage capacity planning processes aimed at drastically reducing their CapEx spending for storage infrastructure.  Despite shrinking unit costs, yearly storage costs are rising faster than the overall IT budget because of applications’ insatiable and growing thirst for computer storage.  Storage demand has been too difficult to project, causing administrators to significantly overprovision storage to avoid shortages. This has resulted in unacceptably wasteful average storage usage of 40%.  Storage Horizon helps IT organizations directly target this expensive low utilization problem, achieve greater value from their existing storage assets, and significantly reduce CapEx spending.

About MonoSphere
MonoSphere, an independent storage management software innovator, helps large to mid-size enterprises forecast, plan, and optimize their storage capacity. MonoSphere’s agent-less software provides customers with the strategic insight they need to maximize resource utilization while proactively planning for future demand. Unlike first-generation reporting tools, MonoSphere delivers clear, accurate, and actionable recommendations so customers can increase their service levels while reducing capital expenditures – all without assuming unnecessary risks that can compromise business processes.

MonoSphere is headquartered in Redwood City, California, and is led by a team of proven innovators in enterprise management and storage infrastructure software markets. Customers include financial services, technology, life sciences, and telecommunications enterprises. The company has attracted $30 million in backing from top-tier investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and ComVentures. For more information, go to www.monosphere.com

For more information:
Frank Kettenstock
650-595-3102
frank@monosphere.com