At the Microsoft Management Summit 2006, Quest Software Inc. (Nasdaq: QSFT) today announced Quest® Spotlight on Active Directory 6.5. This new version is closely integrated with Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 to speed problem detection and resolution by giving customers a single consolidated view of all Active Directory performance issues. Spotlight also provides greater detail and problem context to the MOM Operations Console. This award-winning product has been selected by more than 1,000 customers worldwide, representing millions of Active Directory accounts supported by Quest solutions.

“MOM 2005 is a comprehensive event and performance monitoring solution that provides application and operating system knowledge to help customers identify, understand, and resolve potential IT problems before they occur,” said Eric Berg, director of product management for the Windows and Enterprise Management Division at Microsoft Corp. “With the new release of Spotlight on Active Directory, Quest further streamlines the process of root cause determination and facilitates quicker resolution by feeding additional context into the MOM Operations Console. Customers benefit from one consolidated view of proactive diagnostic and performance information.”

Additional new capabilities in this release include:

• Expanded monitoring of the Active Directory service, including monitoring of schema consistency, site configuration best practices, and Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) best practices.
• Proactive diagnostic alerts on failed directory and file replication, Domain Name Service (DNS) errors, and time synchronization to the MOM Operations Console.
• Population of the MOM 2005 knowledge base with additional context around errors encountered with key Active Directory processes such as File Replication Service (FRS), DNS, and FSMO role placement.

“It is critical to an organization that Active Directory is always available, so when problems occur, they must be resolved quickly,” said Jackson Shaw, senior director of product management, Quest Software. “Busy administrators don’t have time to check multiple products or consoles – they want a single source for all Active Directory status, performance and alerting activity. Together, MOM 2005 and Spotlight offer this through a consolidated view of proactive diagnostic data and performance information. IT professionals appreciate all that Spotlight has to offer.”

Spotlight on Active Directory also continues to offer valuable capabilities including:

• Web-based performance trending reports, summarizing current and historical status of Active Directory.
• Complete context around alerts, informing administrators not only that an analysis test or rule failed, but also why it failed and what caused it to fail.
• Color-coded graphical status display of Active Directory showing administrators when a test fails, as well as when it passes.