AperServ provides a seamless solution that allows enterprises and XSP’s to measure Service Level Agreement (SLA) performance, pin point service level problems, resolve the problems in real time, calculate service credits if service performance levels are not met, and predict these problems before they occur.

AperServ has developed a proprietary, patent pending technology that uses intelligent agents to seamlessly (no software or hardware installations necessary) measure the performance, compliance, response times, up time and other specifics of the SLA’s of outsourced service contracts and provides instantaneous notification of failures, warnings, messages, etc. based upon client defined criteria. The technology pinpoints service problems and actually resolves them through an interface with outsourced providers trouble reporting systems. The system automatically calculates the rebates, refunds, and billing adjustments based upon the service level that is provided and can then create and send adjusted bills to clients, based upon the performance of the service and the level of discount. The system is also designed to gather billing information directly from service providers, creating, in effect, a billing system that checks and corrects invoices and then distributes the corrected invoices to the client electronically, thereby creating an efficient, accurate, and fully integrated performance measurement and billing system.

The AperServ product allows businesses for the first time to seamlessly measure Service Level Agreement (SLA) performance (no software or hardware installation required) of outsourced services in real time providing the unique ability to:

• Pin point specific service problems — AperServ provides a level of granularity that pinpoints the millisecond and exact location where the problem occurred on the network, hardware, or applications level obviating the time and cost associated with searching for the root of the problem and allowing people to focus on fixing, not finding the problem.
• Resolve the problem - AperServ interfaces directly with outsourced service provider’s trouble reporting system and upon pin pointing a problem immediately opens a trouble ticket with the provider and tracks the problem every step of the way until resolution.
• Request a credit - AperServ, upon finding and resolving a service problem, compares the incident with SLA service levels, and in the event the incident was a violation of the SLA, automatically requests a service credit.
• Predict - AperServ is developing proprietary algorithms that, based on the data collected, provide historic performance trend analysis and predictive availability, scalability and failure prediction and analysis. This helps resolve issues before they become service problems and impact clients online operations.

In a recent Morgan Stanley Dean Witter (MSDW) survey of CIO’s at Fortune 500 companies, 44% said that they were considering using outsourced application or hosting services in the coming 12 months. Outsourcing of Internet services is becoming increasingly important with the total of outsourced services revenue growing at a yearly rate of over 50%, with a total of $114.7 billion estimated to be spent on these services by 2004 . Companies all guarantee a high level of service performance (i.e. 99% -100% uptime, very low packet loss, etc.) along with instant notification of any systems problems. This service level agreement (SLA) commitment is part of the standard contract provided from these service providers to their clients, and a key reason why companies decide to outsource. When SLA performance terms are not met standard agreements call for rebates for services not rendered.

While many companies spend millions of dollars on this outsourcing each year, most in fact have no idea whether the services they have contracted for are actually being delivered in accordance with the SLA’s. Further, when there are systems problems companies who outsource these services have no means to verify that they are actually being notified immediately when problems occur. This is simply due to the fact that there is currently no system by which customers can measure performance and verify that these companies are providing their services in accordance with the SLA’s. This means if customers want to assure that they are receiving the service for which they have contracted they must have an independent means to validate and measure service performance and SLA compliance.

AperServ sells directly to the Fortune 1000 and is currently developing partnerships with web development/solutions companies, consultants, accounting firms, and internet auditing companies so that AperServ’s services are included and recommended as part of the design, maintenance, and auditing of sites.

While there are services that monitor systems using installed software or hardware, to our knowledge there is no company that provides a similar non-intrusive service that measures outsourced service level agreement performance, pin points service problems, resolves the problems, and automatically requests credits when service levels are not met. Many of the companies in this space are either focused on measuring internal network performance (netscout, bmc) or measuring the user experience (Keynote, Proactivenet) but not on the relationship between outsourced service providers and their clients. Using the AperServ intelligent agent technology AperServ can provide all these items as well as reconcile and generate the exact bill for service levels rendered over any given billing cycle. In this manner, the AperServ technology could also be instrumental in moving the industry as a whole from a flat monthly fee-billing model to a fully automated exact billing for services rendered system.