Totality Enhances Site Management ServicesTotality Enhances Site Management Services

Management service provider Totality Corp. is capitalizing on the demand for hosted services to drive down IT costs by unveiling the latest version of its site-management and operations-monitoring services.

Totality says its new ManageWare 2.0 E-business site-management and operations services can lower the cost of running a site by as much as 40%, after factoring in the cost of paying an IT staff to work 24-by-7, purchasing and implementing management software, and building the E-business site. ManageWare 2.0 can monitor and manage 10,000 data transfers simultaneously, about three times as many as version 1.0. This expanded coverage is designed to provide quicker diagnosis, isolation, and resolution of problems with data flow across application servers, networks, firewalls, databases, and applications.

Totality also improved its TotalView Web-based client console by adding an interactive feature that lets clients view performance data and request changes to their management levels at any time. The previous version of TotalView was more of a window into the performance data than a tool for initiating site maintenance or requesting policy changes. The price for the premium version of Totality's ManageWare 2.0 with TotalView ranges from $60,000 to $200,000 per month, depending on the number of devices and applications being monitored. Contracts typically cover three years of service.

Totality specializes in monitoring and managing Web interface between the applications and the infrastructure, particularly in IT environments that use middleware from BEA Systems, iPlanet, Blue Martini, and Art Technology Group. ManageWare works exclusively in Unix environments, but support for Microsoft will be added later this year.

Totality's new services create greater flexibility between the service provider and its clients, particularly the ability for clients to communicate via TotalView 2.0, says Peter Christy, principal analyst with Net's Edge Research. Christy adds that Totality is in a good position to continue improving its services, having accumulated more than $122 million in venture-capital funding since its launch in 1999.

The company also said Tuesday that it has added a slew of clients, including American Airlines, BridgeSpan, K-Mart's BlueLight.com, Mr. Stock, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, JC Whitney, the OurHouse division of Ace Hardware, and Translucis. "We have about 20 clients where we provide full management of their E-business environments, these included," says Sharmila Shahani, Totality's VP of business development.

Fledgling E-business Translucis Inc. won't be able to fully take advantage of the MSP's services until July, when the London-based company, which provides online marketing and customer-relationship management services to bars and night clubs, launches its first three products. In the meantime, Translucis chief technology officer Anne Carlson says that hiring Totality earlier this month was the best way to ensure that her company launches its online inventory-collection, Web-based marketing, and event-management services without a hitch, even as other services are in development.