Application Monitoring

Monitoring API available (2006-05-21)

The initial release of the WatchMouse API is available as of today. With this add-on, our customers and resellers can easily create, modify, and delete rules from their own systems and applications using a REST/XML interface. The API also enables customers to download logs and retrieve uptime statistics of each monitoring rule.

Please contact us for more information and pricing of this interface.

BadBoy Software updates scripting recorder to improve WatchMouse's Functional testing service (2009-01-07)

The WatchMouse Functional testing service allows you to define multi-step tests through a website and replay them periodically from the WatchMouse monitoring stations. This goes beyond just monitoring site performance and uptime, it allows you to verify that your web applications and back end systems really work.
More information on this service can be found on the Transaction Monitoring & Web Application Testing page.

In a co-operation with BadBoy software, who provide a tailored version of their recoder software which allows you to upload the resulting script directly into your WatchMouse dashboard.

Feedback from our "Functional testing" customers has lead to several essential improvements to the BadBoy recorder. This improved version has now been released and we recommend all our customers to upgrade to this version.
The new - WatchMouse specific - version can be downloaded here: http://www.badboy.com.au/versions/BadboyInstaller-2.0-latest_wm.exe

The most important changes are:

CHANGES IN BADBOY 2.0.7

   #1097: Multipart Forms Incorrectly export Parameters to JMeter Encoded causing Double Encoding

   #1087: Use Follow-Redirect Option in JMeter for More Reliable Export Playback

   #1086: Export Referer and Other Default Headers to JMeter

   #1085: Assertions placed as Children of Requests not Exported to JMeter

CHANGES IN BADBOY 2.0.6.1

   #1075: Security Update (MS08-052 - Critical)

The full release notes can be found here: http://badboy.com.au/versions/ReleaseNotes-2.0.7.txt

LB Icon chooses WatchMouse for independent website monitoring (2005-01-31)

Customer websites verified from the visitors' perspective

LB Icon and WatchMouse have signed a contract for the continuous monitoring of the websites and services of LB Icons' customers. Using the WatchMouse services, LB Icon expects to raise its service level even higher.

The Application Management & Hosting Services (AM&HS) group of LB Icon maintains the administration and management of servers and applications of a large number of (international) clients. This makes AM&HS responsible for the performance and availability of the websites and Internet applications.

Using the WatchMouse services, AM&HS will instantly be aware of upcoming and/or acute incidents related to the websites of its clients, and can, as a result, resolve problems in a short time frame.
The websites and their functionality are checked for accessibility, speed and conformance from different locations around the world. Because the websites are checked in the same way that visitors are experiencing them, incidents will be detected at an early stage. Also, using WatchMouse's objective periodical reports, it is possible to see if the performance is in accordance with the agreed service levels (SLAs).

Eveline Aendekerk, MD a.i.: "The door of a shop should never be jammed, websites and the functionality on those sites should simply be accessible and available. Our clients should be able to rely on this completely, so they can focus on their primary business processes, such as communication, interaction and sales.
We chose WatchMouse because of their expertise, and also because of the simplicity and user-friendliness of their system and services".

Stan P. van de Burgt, one of the founders of WatchMouse: "I find it a powerful gesture that LB Icon doesn't just monitor the websites of their clients, but that they selected an external party for this, and on top of that give their clients access to the results. Many companies where the website plays an essential role in business, don't have any awareness of this. They have no idea of the risks and the resulting damage, until the day comes that things actually go wrong"

About Lost Boys

For 11 years Lost Boys has been a major service provider in the area of (mobile) Internet. Lost Boys offers a combination of strategy, design, technical development, implementation, application management and hosting of Internet- and mobile solutions. The Amsterdam based corporation is part of the Lost Boys/IconMedialab Group and is listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange and Euronext Amsterdam. Lost Boys operates with 600 employees in 7 countries, both in Europe and the United States.

http://www.lostboys.nl/
http://iconmedialab.com/

About WatchMouse

WatchMouse is a service of RoundZero. Since 2001, WatchMouse has been checking Internet sites and e-commerce applications of major companies all over the world. The WatchMouse services are available in 8 languages and analysis is performed through its worldwide monitoring network at different locations and networks. WatchMouse has thousands of users in more than 70 countries.

http://www.watchmouse.com/

Dutch e-commerce sites poorly prepared for Christmas rush (2004-12-14)

Only 20% achieve maximum availability

UTRECHT, 20041205 -- Many Dutch e-commerce sites have made only minimal preparations for the increased number of visitors in December. The congestion caused by Sinterklaas [traditional Dutch celebration on 5 December] meant that, on average, only one in six sites was continuously available. This was the conclusion of WatchMouse, a Dutch monitoring site, following a survey of 25 e-commerce sites. Even worse figures are expected during the weeks before Christmas. Excessive interest from customers can overload the server or have dramatic effect on response times.

During the past month, WatchMouse – at its own initiative – closely monitored 25 sites where consumers can shop online, such as Bol.com, Wehkamp, Free Record Shop, De Bijenkorf, ECI, Bart Smit, Dixons and Bruna. The survey shows that the 'up time' – the time during which the server is online – varied from 98% to 99.6%. "This may seem high, but a score of 98% means that a site is not available for half an hour per day. This makes 14 hours a month, or a week a year", says Mark Pors, one of the founders of WatchMouse.

The consequences of this are reflected not only in loss of income. Pors: "A website that is not available can cause stacks of work for a helpdesk and, at the end of the day, damage the brand’s image. The problem is that many website owners are unaware that sites are responding poorly, or not at all. If they were aware of this, taking action to intervene is simplicity itself: for example, by adding extra server capacity."

WatchMouse has concluded from its survey that only 20% of the sites have achieved optimum accessibility. Given the increasing trend in online purchases, gigantic sums are involved. In the first six months of 2004, online expenditure rose to € 775 million; a 35% increase. Each online shopper spent € 227 from January through June of this year (Blauw Research, September 2004).

December is also a top month for purchasing on the internet. Pors: "We saw response times and the number of error reports increase dramatically in the days leading up to Sinterklaas. This does not bode well for the even busier period before Christmas."

WatchMouse

Companies can easily monitor their internet sites themselves, thanks to WatchMouse’s monitoring service.

WatchMouse has been monitoring internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies across the globe since 2001. WatchMouse has thousands of users in more than 70 countries. WatchMouse services are available in seven languages, and analyses are carried out through the world-wide monitoring network from a range of locations and networks.

WatchMouse opens new monitoring stations in China and London (2005-01-12)

Largest monitoring network world-wide.

UTRECHT, 20041210 -- WatchMouse, active in monitoring websites world-wide, has opened two new monitoring stations: in Hong Kong and London. At the same time, the company’s station in Sydney, Australia, has been completely renewed. With this expansion, WatchMouse is responding to the explosive growth in interest in real-time site monitoring from e-commerce companies. With nine stations, the Utrecht-based company is now the largest monitoring network world-wide.

Thanks to rapidly increasing online expenditure via the Internet, services such as WatchMouse are undergoing significant development. A monitoring station provides insight into the availability of e-commerce sites, the speed of these sites and response times. Research performed among Dutch websites by WatchMouse has demonstrated that many sites are still missing out in this area. Mark Pors, one of the founders of WatchMouse: “As spending online is growing by tens of percentage points each year, it is in the interest of sites to obtain insight into how they are functioning. A server that is poorly accessible for half an hour or more a day loses lots of money. Companies are increasingly recognising that they are losing out, both in terms of turnover and image. Not only in the Netherlands, but also elsewhere. For this reason, we are setting up stations in more countries.”

Local testing

By creating a larger spread among the control stations, sites can be monitored from more points throughout the world. WatchMouse is responding to increasing demand from clients for a world-wide picture of site availability. WatchMouse’s clients can also stipulate a preferred station for 'local' testing. For this reason, China and Great Britain have been added as two strategically important markets for e-commerce. The Utrecht company’s other stations operate from Florida, Texas, Sydney, Nuremberg, Orleans, Amsterdam and Singapore.

WatchMouse

WatchMouse has been monitoring internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies all over the world since 2001. WatchMouse has thousands of clients in more than 70 countries. The company’s services are available in seven languages, analyses are performed from a range of locations and networks via the world-wide monitoring network.

This press release in Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese

European e-commerce sites poorly prepared for Christmas rush (2004-12-24)

Comparison with US "role models" Amazon and Barnes & Noble

THE NETHERLANDS, 20041223 -- Many European e-commerce sites have made only minimal preparations for the increased number of visitors in December. The congestion caused by Christmas meant that, on average, only one in six web sites was continuously available. This was the conclusion of WatchMouse, a Dutch monitoring service provider, following a survey of over 50 European e-commerce sites. Excessive interest from customers can overload the server or have dramatic effect on response times.

During the past month, WatchMouse – at its own initiative – closely monitored over 50 web sites where consumers can shop online. The survey shows that the availability varied from 98% to 99.6%. "This may seem high, but a score of 98% means that a site is not available for half an hour per day. This makes 14 hours a month, or a week a year", says Mark Pors, one of the founders of WatchMouse.

As a comparison to the US market, two "role models of e-commerce" - amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com - were monitored during the same period. Amazon`s performance was similar to that of the average European web shop, whereas Barns & Noble outperformed most e-commerce sites with an uptime of 100%.

The consequences of downtime are reflected not only in loss of income. Pors: "A website that is not available can cause stacks of work for your helpdesk and, at the end of the day, damage your brand. The problem is that many website owners are unaware that sites are responding poorly, or not responding at all. If they were aware of this, taking action to intervene is simplicity itself: for example, by adding extra server capacity."

WatchMouse has concluded from its survey that more than 70% of the web sites have not achieved optimum accessibility. Given the increasing trend in online purchases, gigantic sums are involved: Online sales will increase by 44% to €13 billion ($17 billion) in Western Europe over the holidays period, compared to €10 billion ($13 billion) in the US (Forrester Research, November 2004).

December is a top month for purchasing on the internet. Pors: "We see response times and the number of error reports increase dramatically in the days leading up to Christmas."

About WatchMouse

Companies can easily monitor their internet sites themselves, thanks to WatchMouse’s monitoring service.

WatchMouse has been monitoring internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies across the globe since 2001. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. WatchMouse services are available in seven languages, and analyses are carried out through the world-wide monitoring network from a range of locations and networks.

WatchMouse publishes first 'Site Availability Index' (2005-06-28)

Only 9 out of 25 funds listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange have sites with good availability

Of the websites of the 25 funds listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange (AEX), only nine display optimal availability. The availability of the other sites, including those of multinationals, ranges from poor to dramatically poor. Unilever has the best result of all websites, with an uptime of 99.995%. The site with the lowest availability is that of Wolters-Kluwer, with an uptime of 94.80%, which represents more than 37 hours of poor performance, or even unavailability, per month. This was the conclusion drawn from the first Site Availability Index created by WatchMouse, a company supplying monitoring services for websites and e-commerce applications world-wide.

An uptime of 99.9% is seen as the minimum acceptable level. This percentage is also often quoted in service level agreements (SLAs) with hosting providers. In order to determine the extent to which the sites of AEX funds achieve satisfactory uptime, WatchMouse monitored the sites for more than two months. Downtime was said to occur if a site was not available or did not respond within 8 seconds.

The Site Availability Index for AEX funds (www.watchmouse.com/bereikbaarheidsindex/2005/AEX.html) showed that only nine funds fulfilled the minimum required level of 99.9%. These were Unilever, Philips, AEGON, Numico, Akzo Nobel, ASML Holding, Kon. P&O Nedlloyd, Versatel and Buhrmann. Bringing up the rear were IT company(!) Getronics (96.87%), DSM (96.75%), and Wolters-Kluwer, which with a score of 94.80% is over a day and a half a month ‘off the air’.

The Site Availability Index for AEX funds is an initiative of Emerce and WatchMouse and will be repeated annually.

"Very surprised"

Mark Pors, chief technology officer at WatchMouse, stated that he was "very surprised" by the results. "With many sites, we found an uptime that is worse than that of many smaller companies. And this while AEX funds in particular should attach a great deal of priority to their corporate image. A maximum uptime is part of the 'brand performance'. Our theory is that, where there are a lot of people involved within an organisation, there are a lot of hands unplugging cables, so to speak. These companies have complex processes, a great many internal changes are made, and outsourcing of various activities means transparency is often at a premium. This is clearly the case with Getronics, for example. The uptime of the site at the weekend is 100%, but during the week, when people are working, this decreases dramatically."

Pors suspects that the popularity of the sites could also be a reason for poor availability. "Naturally, sites belonging to AEX funds get a lot more traffic than the smaller businesses. On the other hand, this is no excuse; if we look at large online brokers in the US, for example, all achieve an uptime in excess of 99.9%."

About WatchMouse

Companies can easily monitor their own internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2001. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in eight languages, and analyses are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.

In June 2005, WatchMouse was selected by FEM Business as one of the 25 most promising, innovative companies in the Netherlands.

Further information can be found at: www.watchmouse.com.

Rapidly growing WatchMouse wins Deloitte’s Rising Star award (2005-09-23)

WatchMouse is one of the three winners of Deloitte’s Rising Star award. This award is presented annually to rapidly expanding technology companies less than five years old. WatchMouse has been active worldwide for three years in the area of site and server monitoring. With 16 monitoring stations throughout the world, WatchMouse monitors the availability of customers’ websites, immediately sounding the alarm in the event of problems.

The Rising Stars are presented as part of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 ceremony, the fifty most rapidly expanding technology businesses. The Rising Stars have the potential to lead the Technology Fast 50 in the near future. Stan van de Burgt (42), Niels Eijsbroek (40) and Mark Pors (38) first came up with the idea for WatchMouse in 2001. The concept was as unique as it was clear: to monitor the availability of sites and servers by constantly simulating web traffic. If a site is not responding or an error is found, the customer is notified immediately by SMS, pager, IM or e-mail. From the moment the concept went 'live', in 2002, the pace has been frenetic: turnover doubled each year. Web sites are now monitored from sixteen monitoring stations worldwide 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The WatchMouse application is entirely web-based: customers do not have to install software or hardware at their site, and the application excels in its self-service aspects while staying easy to use. This allows WatchMouse to operate with a small core of permanent employees, supplemented by external support. Prospective customers can specify their requirements in detail on the WatchMouse site. A range of starter packages is available, priced from € 17.50 per month up to € 450 per month. 400 paying customers in 40 countries worldwide now make use of WatchMouse’s services. These include hosting companies, government bodies, and companies such as LB Icon, Scania, Siemens, Orange, ING, GeoTrust, Citibank, and Postbank.

Self-service as a success factor

Mark Pors, Chief Technology Officer, says he was “pleasantly surprised by the award”. “I am very happy that the jury shares our vision of self-service and our market approach." Pors sees WatchMouse as “the right initiative at the right moment. Companies are increasingly looking to outsource non-core tasks. However, they want to be able to guide and control this themselves and from their own workplace. Web-based services make this possible." Stan van de Burgt, CEO, sees the simplicity of the WatchMouse site and the various languages in which it is available as the major success factors. "Monitoring websites was an idea that already existed in essence, but had not been worked out in this form. We are geared tightly to 'self service', whereby customers can set up everything themselves and retain total control. Which also means we are able to offer the service at a more attractive price than other players in the market.”

The Rising Star awards were presented on Thursday, 22 September.

WatchMouse

WatchMouse assesses your website and e-commerce applications just like your customers experience them. The checks are carried out from 16 monitoring stations worldwide, and recorded in regular reports. In the event of errors or availability problems, the right people within your organisation will be alerted.

www.watchmouse.com

WatchMouse develops monitoring widget for Apple users (download widget) (2005-10-21)

WatchMouse has developed a new widget for dashboard, aimed at Internet site monitoring.

NETHERLANDS, 2005-10-13. By means of the widget Apple users can get direct insight into the accessibility of their own Internet site. The widget can be downloaded for free from the Apple website. Last month, WatchMouse was voted a Deloitte Rising Star in the Netherlands, as part of the Fast 50 awards; the list of the 50 fastest growing technology companies.

In 2002, WatchMouse (www.watchmouse.com) introduced a new concept for Internet site monitoring. By means of ongoing simulations of Internet traffic the accessibility of sites and servers is checked. If a site is not responding, an alert message is sent immediately through SMS, telephone, Instant Messenger or e-mail. The sites are checked from sixteen monitoring stations worldwide. This is done 24 hours per day, seven days per week. The service is completely web based: customers don't have to install software, everything is 100% self-service, which keeps the costs low.

The three founders of WatchMouse, Niels Eijsbroek, Stan van de Burgt and Mark Pors are enormous Mac-fans with a total of fifteen Macs in their possession. The monitoring widget is quite unique: it is a combination of a desktop and a hosted application. When the widgets detects a problem with the site it is checking, it alerts the user with a 'beep', followed by the launch of a web browser, which is directed to a web application on watchmouse.com. There the site is checked from 16 different locations worldwide.

Every five minutes

Every five minutes the dashboard widget checks one or more sites from the users own computer. Also, the availability of the site during the last 72 hours is registered. A problem is followed by an alert, which is then verified by all WatchMouse control stations.

WatchMouse has made the widget available free of charge "because we have become addicted to it, ever since we started using the first beta version of the widget", says CCO Niels Eijsbroek. "We give the widget away for free mainly for the fun part. And of course it's also important to bring site monitoring to the attention of our fellow Apple-users."

The free WatchMouse site monitoring widget can be downloaded from the Apple website:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/networking_security/watchmousesitemonitor.html

About WatchMouse

Companies can easily monitor their own Internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring Internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2002. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in eight languages, and analysis are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.

Further information can be found at: www.watchmouse.com

Minitel Beats the Internet When it Comes to Availability (2005-10-27)

UTRECHT The Netherlands, October 24, 2005 -- Minitel, the eighties precursor to the Internet, is more reliable than most of the top French Internet sites. This is the conclusion from a research by WatchMouse, a monitoring service company for Internet sites worldwide. For two months WatchMouse monitored twenty sites which offer similar information to their Minitel-equivalent, and found that not one of these sites is 100% available.

According to WatchMouse, Minitel still has a future. Many organisations which offer services both through Minitel and the Internet, cannot deliver 100% website availability. Of the twenty sites which were monitored, only three had an 'uptime' of 99.9% which is considered as the 'minimum acceptable'. This percentage is frequently used in service level agreements (SLA's) by host providers. The best performing websites were verif.fr (3617 VERIF) with 99.99%, socgen.com (3615 SG) with an uptime of 99.95%, and alapage.com with 99.92%.

At the bottom of the ranking were anpe.fr (ANPE 3614) with 98.18% and bnpnet.bnp.fr, (BNP 3614) with 97.99%. This makes the BNP site the worst performer, by being unavailable or performing poorly for almost 15 hours per month. For the full list see http://www.watchmouse.com/pr/watchmouse_minitel.php

About WatchMouse

Companies can easily monitor their own Internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring Internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2002. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in eight languages, and analyses are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.

Last month, WatchMouse was voted a Deloitte Rising Star in the Netherlands, as part of the Fast 50 awards; the list of the 50 fastest growing technology companies.

Further information can be found at: www.watchmouse.com

Spanish websites suffer from poor performance (2005-12-04)

WatchMouse research shows that 71% of IBEX websites availability is below industry standards

MADRID, 20051121 - Of the top 35 funds listed on the Bolsa de Madrid (IBEX), 25 have websites with poor to dramatically poor availability. Many of the sites are badly accessible or unavailable for more than an hour per month.

The worst site, that of Antena 3 TV, is even unavailable for an equivalent of more than 8 days per month.

This was the conclusion drawn from the first Spanish Site Availability Index created by WatchMouse, a company supplying monitoring services for websites and e-commerce applications worldwide. In order to determine the extent to which the sites of IBEX funds achieve a satisfactory uptime, WatchMouse monitored the sites continuously between October 23 and November 11, 2005. Every five minutes, one of WatchMouse’s test stations tried to access the homepage of the site, which was expected to download within 8 seconds, without any errors.

An uptime of 99.9% is seen as the minimum acceptable level. This percentage is also often quoted in service level agreements (SLAs) with hosting providers. There were only five sites which achieved perfect 100% availability - Sogecable, Arcelor, FCC, BSCH and Altadis. The availability of the three worst performers was less than 95%; Acerinox (94.66%), Gamesa (86.54%) and Antena 3 TV with 73.05%.

Mark Pors, chief technology officer at WatchMouse, stated that he was "very surprised" by the results. "With several sites, we found an uptime that was worse than that of many smaller companies. This is worrying as IBEX funds in particular should give a great deal of priority to their corporate image. Maximum uptime should be part of the overall 'brand performance'."

Pors suspects that for some sites, the popularity could be a reason for poor availability. "Some of the sites belonging to IBEX funds will get a lot of traffic. However, this is no excuse; if we look at large online brokers in the US, for example, all achieve an uptime in excess of 99.9%."

A complete overview of the monitoring results of the WatchMouse Site Availability Index, listing the 35 sites, can be found on http://www.watchmouse.com/en/availabilityindex/2005/IBEX.php

About WatchMouse

Companies can easily monitor their own Internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring Internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2002. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in eight languages, and analysis are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.

Further information can be found at: www.watchmouse.com

WatchMouse and Domeny.pl join forces in the Polish market (2005-11-24)

Polish websites verified from the visitors' perspective

Kraków, Poland, 2005-11-08 -- WatchMouse and Domeny signed a reseller and marketing agreement today, joining forces in bringing site monitoring services to the Polish market.

Using the WatchMouse services, companies will instantly be aware of upcoming and/or acute incidents related to its web sites of their clients, and can, as a result, resolve problems in a short time frame.

The websites and their functionality are checked for availability, speed, and conformance from different locations around the world, now including Poland. Because the websites are checked in the same way that visitors are experiencing them, incidents will be detected at an early stage. Also, using WatchMouse's objective periodical reports, it is possible for companies to see if the performance is in accordance with the agreed service levels (SLAs).

WatchMouse extends its network of monitoring stations with a checkpoint in Kraków, hosted by Domeny.pl. The total number of checkpoints is now 17. Domeny.pl also provides the Polish language version of the WatchMouse site and local customer care.

Stan P. van de Burgt, CEO of WatchMouse: "I'm very happy with this deal. The Polish e-service industry is obviously booming, and this results in higher awareness of the issues involved with running web applications that should be available around the clock."

Arkadiusz Szczurowski, CEO of Domeny.pl "We know that WatchMouse products are one of the best in the World. So we decided to co-operate with the company, and we take pride in it. We expect this co-operation to bring both WatchMouse and our business a lot of advantages and satisfaction. Domeny.pl wants to lead WatchMouse monitoring service on Polish market and offer it for business leaders. This will be a great innovation in Poland and also success. In our view, site monitoring is important, because stability, performance, and high availability of the web sites is one of the basic value in all branches of business, both e-business and other business."

"There are about 4 million companies in Poland. We want to direct the offer to the most important on Polish market. We think that the WatchMouse service is a must-have for about 5-10 percent of all business owners."

About Domeny.pl

Domeny.pl was founded in 1997 and is now providing Internet services to about 10.000 business customers with products ranging from Internet domains and hosting services (virtual and dedicated servers), SSL certificates and other products dealing with internet security. The company's slogan is: We're Trusted by the Best. Among its clients are the biggest and the best known Polish and international companies.

About WatchMouse

Companies can easily monitor their own Internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring Internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2002. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in nine languages, and analyses are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.

In October 2005, WatchMouse was voted a Deloitte Rising Star in the Netherlands, as part of the Fast 50 awards the list of the 50 fastest growing technology companies.

US online stockbroker beats UK counterpart (2005-12-11)

WatchMouse report favourable on availability US stockbroker sites

UTRECHT, NL, 20051206 -- The websites of US online stockbrokers have an excellent availability record. This was one of the findings in a research by WatchMouse, a company providing monitoring services for websites and e-commerce applications worldwide. Of the 29 US websites that were covered by the research, 18 have an uptime percentage of 99.9% or better, and as many as 10 of these reached the perfect 100% mark.

This makes the US online brokers perform significantly better than their UK counterparts: at a similar research in the UK, just one out of 16 websites researched is available continuously, and five are listed at 99.9%. An uptime level of 99.9% is generally seen as the minimum acceptable level and is often quoted in service level agreements (SLAs) with hosting providers or in-house IT departments.

With a growing percentage of the stock market taking place on the Internet, it becomes ever more important to always be available, with the fastest possible response time. Mark Pors, CTO at WatchMouse claims: "Even more than shopping sites, stockbroker sites cannot afford to be unavailable- the stock business is an always-on business"

In order to determine the extent to which the online stockbrokers achieve satisfactory availability, WatchMouse monitored the websites during the official trading hours of the New York (NYSE) and London stock exchange respectively. During a period of two months, October through November, every five minutes, one of WatchMouse’s monitoring stations accessed the customer login page of the website, which was then expected to download within 8 seconds, without any errors.

The differences are remarkable: US brokers have- almost without exception- a very high availability. Ameritrade Plus, Bank One, Charles Schwab, Cititrade, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Quick and Reilly, Tradingdirect, USAA, and Wellsfargo, were all continuously available throughout the research period. Another eight sites displayed a 99.9% uptime. Not one of the US brokers reported an uptime below the 99% mark. Still, AB Watley Direct, last on the list at 99.04%, adds up to a 1 hours and 20 minutes downtime per month during trading hours.

In the UK the results are far worse. Only Alliance-Leicester maintained the 100% availability, and five others are at 99.9% or up. Two of the 16 UK brokers were even tagged with a "poor availability". Stocktrade is difficult to reach almost two hours per month and Fasttrade a whopping five hours, both during trading hours.

Still, the online stockbrokers have a significantly higher uptime average than other sectors, such as e-shops, government, and news media. WatchMouse reports on these sectors on a regular basis with their 'availability index'.

Online trading trouble

Mark Pors, emphasises the importance of a high uptime for online stockbrokers: "With online securities transactions, the site should be very responsive. After hitting the 'confirm button', you should never have to question whether the order was placed correctly or not. Online brokers understand the importance of being online, and having a fast response time during trading hours."

A complete overview of the monitoring results of the WatchMouse Site Availability Index, listing the US and UK online brokers, can be found on http://www.watchmouse.com/availabilityindex/2005/uk-us-brokers.php

About WatchMouse

Companies can easily monitor their own Internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring Internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2002. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in eight languages, and analyses are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.

WatchMouse was voted a Deloitte Rising Star in the Netherlands, as part of the 2005 Fast 50 awards; the list of the 50 fastest growing technology companies.

Further information can be found at: www.watchmouse.com

Spanish e-tailers not ready for Xmas shopping rush (2005-12-09)

WatchMouse research reveals weaknesses of Spanish online shops

Not a single Spanish webshop has an uptime of 100%, and only one out of 10 meets the regular industry availability standards. This is the conclusion of a research by WatchMouse, one of the fastest growing companies in the Netherlands, and winner of the Deloite Rising Star award in 2005.

WatchMouse has been monitoring the main ten Spanish webshops for 38 days, to find out if they are going to be able to handle the Christmas rush. The results of the WatchMouse Availability Index for Spanish e-tailers are poor. "We predict a long wait for internet customers this Christmas season, as Spanish e-shops don't seem to be ready to handle the increased traffic. In a fairly quiet period the performance has already been below standard. The extra volume of online shoppers before Christmas will definitely cause problems, and may even bring some sites down completely", says Mark Pors, CTO WatchMouse.

"According to recent research by the Asociación Española de Comercio Electrónico, retail e-trade in Spain reached some 1.8 billion euros in 2004. So there are big amounts at stake here. If customers cannot get through on a website, or are experiencing a long wait, they often decide to visit a competitive site, causing webshops to lose deals, and even risk losing loyal customers for good."

WatchMouse monitored the top ten Spanish e-tailers continuously from October 25 until December 2. Every 5 minutes, one of WatchMouse’s test stations tried to access the homepage of the site, which is expected to download within 8 seconds, without any errors. An uptime of 99.9% is seen as the minimum acceptable level. This percentage is also often quoted in service level agreements (SLAs) with hosting providers.

Of the ten websites monitored, there was only one meeting this requirement: Carrefour. Mercadona and AreaPC were the sites with the worst availability, showing a respective downtime of an equivalent of 10 and 16 hours over the 38-day testing period. In comparison: the main US e-tailers, such as eBay and Amazon all have 100% uptime, which shows perfect availability can be achieved.

A complete overview of the monitoring results of the 10 sites can be found on http://www.watchmouse.com/availabilityindex/2005/eshops-es.php
WatchMouse will continue to monitor the performance of the ten Spanish etailers over the Christmas period and will publish its findings in January 2006.

About WatchMouse

Companies can easily monitor their own Internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring Internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2002. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in eight languages, and analyses are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.

Further information can be found at: www.watchmouse.com.

Spanish banks closed for online business (2006-02-14)

WatchMouse research reveals most Spanish Internet banks struggle to offer reliable access to customers

Madrid, January 10, 2006 - Only one out of 31 Spanish banks offering Internet banking, has a login page available 100% of the time. Added to this, only 5 of the Internet banks' login pages monitored meets the regular industry availability standards.

This is the conclusion of a research by WatchMouse, one of the fastest growing companies in the Netherlands, and winner of the Deloitte Rising Star award in 2005. The company has been monitoring the Internet banking portals of the main Spanish banks for 2 months, and has found them to be well below acceptable service standards.

"One of the primary aims of Internet banking is 24 hour, 365 day access to account information. Sadly, Spanish customers are finding that this is far from the case. One bank's online banking portal login page was even unavailable 11 percent of the time - which inevitably means poor service for its clients", says Mark Pors, CTO at WatchMouse. "Customers of this bank have no guarantee they will be able to access their money when they need to make an urgent transfer."

Of the 31 banks whose sites were monitored, only BBVA's login page was 100% available. An uptime of 99.9% is seen as the minimum acceptable level, but 80% of the banks were unable to offer that.

Caja Cantabria has the worst performing online banking portal, showing downtime equivalent to more than 3 days over the 2-month testing period (11 percent of the time). Banco Urquijo was second worst, with a total downtime of more than one day over the testing period.

As a comparison: the main US brokers, such as Morgan Stanley, Cititrade and Wellsfargo all have 100% uptime, which provides a benchmark for availability in the financial world.

WatchMouse monitored the 31 Spanish banks' websites continuously from November 6, 2005 until January 5, 2006. Every 5 minutes, one of WatchMouse's test stations tried to access the login pages of the bank's Internet banking portals, which are expected to load within 8 seconds, without any errors.

Besides the Internet banking portals, WatchMouse also checked the availability of the home page of each Internet bank, plus 19 other banks that don't offer Internet banking. Of these 50 homepages in total, none had a homepage with 100% availability and only 11 of the 50 are meeting industry standards.

A complete overview of results can be found on http://www.watchmouse.com/availabilityindex/2006/banks-es.php

About WatchMouse

Companies can easily monitor their own Internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring Internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2002. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in eight languages, and analyses are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.

Further information can be found at: www.watchmouse.com.

Lazio tops Serie A internet league - Chievo Verona relegated to Web also-rans - (2006-02-07)

UTRECHT, February 7, 2006 - Lazio, AC Milan, Treviso and Empoli FC lead the way in Serie A performance - on the web, rather than the pitch.

WatchMouse, a monitoring service that checks the availability of websites worldwide, spent two months following the twenty clubs in Serie A. If a site is not available or there is no response within eight seconds, this is classified as downtime. The results of the research make worrying reading for some of the world's 'super clubs'.

Only two Serie A teams achieved a 'satisfactory' score - namely more than 99.9% accessibility (or 0.1% downtime), which is seen as the minimum. The 'real' leader of the pack, Juventus, was back in eighth place.

Chievo Verona finds itself adrift in last place. In other words, fans of that club can assume that the club's site will be unavailable for a total of three days a month. In fact their supporters may be better advised to look for another team: with a score of 89.89%, the present number six in the 'real' table, performs not much better than the site of the trattoria round the corner.

The results were not encouraging for Serie A fans. Only Lazio and AC Milan made the 'Champions League' of availability, with scores which exceeded the 99.9% benchmark.

"Of course, scores of 99% look encouraging, concludes Mark Pors, WatchMouse's chief technology officer. "However the internet is an increasingly important communications channel for football clubs. Teams playing at the top level have a supporter base spread across the world, and the Internet is the primary channel for reaching them. Fans wanting to look something up on the internet expect a site to be continuously available. If it's not, they could take their affiliation and custom elsewhere."

Pors is surprised that clubs in Serie A, many of which have a considerable reputation, have not got their house in order on the internet. "For most of the sites, we are seeing an uptime that is poorer than that of many very small companies. Now, more than ever, football is big business with billions of customers. Clubs which fail to understand this will be unable to compete financially or on the pitch in years to come."

A complete overview of results can be found on http://www.watchmouse.com/availabilityindex/2006/serie-a-it.php

About WatchMouse

Companies can easily monitor their own Internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring Internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2002. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in eight languages, and analyses are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.

Further information can be found at: www.watchmouse.com.

FTSE 100 websites suffer from poor performance (2006-04-13)

WatchMouse research shows that 57% of FTSE 100 websites availability is below industry standards

London, April 18, 2006 - Of the 100 companies listed on the FTSE, 57 have websites with poor availability. Many of the sites are badly accessible or unavailable for more than an hour per month.

The worst site, that of United Utilities, is even unavailable for an equivalent of more than 5 days per month.

This was the conclusion drawn from the WatchMouse Site Availability Index for the FTSE 100, created by WatchMouse, a company supplying monitoring services for websites and e-commerce applications worldwide. In order to determine the extent to which the sites of FTSE 100 achieve a satisfactory uptime, WatchMouse monitored the sites continuously between March 2 and April 10, 2006. Every five minutes, one of WatchMouse’s test stations tried to access the homepage of the site, which was expected to download within 8 seconds, without any errors.

An uptime of 99.9% is seen as the minimum acceptable level. This percentage is also often quoted in service level agreements (SLAs) with hosting providers. There were fourteen sites which achieved perfect 100% availability. The availability of the two worst performers was less than 91%; Scottish Power (90.78%) and United Utilities (81.53%).

Mark Pors, chief technology officer at WatchMouse, stated that he was "very surprised" by the results. "With several sites, we found an uptime that was worse than that of many smaller companies. This is worrying as the FTSE companies in particular should give a great deal of priority to their corporate image. Maximum uptime should be part of the overall 'brand performance'."

Pors suspects that for some sites, the popularity could be a reason for poor availability. "Some of the sites belonging to FTSE 100 will get a lot of traffic. However, this is no excuse; if we look at large online brokers in the US, for example, all achieve an uptime in excess of 99.9%."

A complete overview of the monitoring results of the WatchMouse Site Availability Index, listing the 100 sites, can be found on http://www.watchmouse.com/SPI/2006/FTSE100.php

British online holiday shops regularly closed for business (2006-05-17)

WatchMouse research shows that 79% of British vacation booking sites are unavailable for more than 1 hour per month

London, May 16, 2006 – More and more people are booking their holidays online, but the typical 24/7 travel shop in the UK is not the norm yet. Airlines sites did a far better job in the same period.

Only two travel sites are always up and running; ebookers.com and thomascook.com. Travelocity.co.uk, virginholidays.co.uk and expedia.co.uk have a good uptime of over 99,9%. But the rest of the companies researched perform below this industry standard rate, with the worst performer - the site traveljungle.co.uk- being unavailable for an equivalent of almost 3 days (69 hours) per month.

These are the conclusions drawn from the WatchMouse Site Performance Index for British holiday websites, created by WatchMouse, a company supplying monitoring services for websites and e-commerce applications worldwide. In order to determine the extent to which the sites achieve a satisfactory uptime, WatchMouse monitored the sites continuously between April 6 and May 9, 2006.

During the same period, WatchMouse monitored the British airlines websites. These perform better generally: 53% was above industry standards and 7 have perfect 100% availability. This shows the airlines realize the need for having a site that is continuously available.

Mark Pors, Chief Technology Officer at WatchMouse: "Nowadays 24 hour availability is achievable, so there is no need for a site being down. For companies who only do business online, and the website is a single source of revenue, downtime means you have no business."

He continues: “We are now entering the period in which traditionally most of the last minute bookings take place. This means the sites can expect even more traffic, with a negative impact on the site availability. Recent research has shown that e-shoppers are impatient, when a site does not download within 30 seconds, 75% of people take their money elsewhere.* So companies may not get a second chance.”

A complete overview of the monitoring results of the WatchMouse Site Availability Index, listing all the sites monitored, can be found on http://www.watchmouse.com/en/SPI/2006/travelUK.php and http://www.watchmouse.com/en/SPI/2006/airlinesUK.php

*) research by TelecityRedbus, April 2006

24/7 access to bank account not a reality in the UK (2006-06-21)

WatchMouse research shows that 65% of British internet banking sites are unavailable for more than 1 hour per month

London, June 27, 2006 – The 24/7 internet bank in the UK is not the norm yet. From a test of the main 26 internet banking sites, a mere 3 come out with perfect availability. This perfect, 100% availability is achieved only by Intelligent Finance, Northern Rock, and Ulster Bank. Worst performers are Standard Chartered and Citibank, being unavailable for an equivalent of respectively 2,3 and 2,6 days per month.

These are the conclusions drawn from the WatchMouse Site Performance Index for British internet banking websites, created by WatchMouse, a company supplying monitoring services for websites and e-commerce applications worldwide. In order to determine the extent to which the sites achieve a satisfactory uptime, WatchMouse monitored the sites continuously between May 19 and June 18, 2006.

During the same period, WatchMouse monitored the other main internet banking websites in Europe, and found that in France performance was better then in the UK, with over 40% of banks scoring above 99,9% uptime.

Mark Pors, Chief Technology Officer at WatchMouse: "Nowadays 24 hour availability is achievable, so there is no need for a site being down. Many companies and individuals nowadays rely on internet banking for all of their transactions, which means the internet banking site is the only way to access their funds."

He continues: "It is unacceptable that urgent payments can end up being delayed or stuck, simply because a site is not accessible. Of course these sites get a lot of peak traffic, but this is no excuse; if we look at large online brokers in the US, for example, all achieve an uptime in excess of 99.9%."

A complete overview of the monitoring results of the WatchMouse Site Availability Index, listing all the sites monitored, can be found on http://www.watchmouse.com/SPI/2006/banksUK.php

WatchMouse releases new Site Performance Monitoring Widget for Apple users (download widget) (2006-10-22)

WatchMouse releases 2.0 widget for dashboard, aimed at Internet site performance monitoring.

NETHERLANDS, 2006-10-23. By means of the widget Apple users can get direct insight into the performance of their own Internet site. The widget can be downloaded for free from the Apple website.

In 2002, WatchMouse (www.watchmouse.com) introduced a new concept for Internet site monitoring. By means of ongoing simulation of Internet visitors the performance of sites and servers is verified. If a site is not responding, an alert message is sent immediately through SMS, pager, Instant Messenger or e-mail. The sites are checked from over twenty monitoring stations worldwide. This is done 24 hours per day, seven days per week. The service is completely web based: customers don't have to install software, everything is 100% self-service, which keeps the costs low.

The three founders of WatchMouse, Niels Eijsbroek, Stan van de Burgt and Mark Pors are enormous Mac-fans with a total of twenty Macs in their possession. The monitoring widget is quite unique: it is a combination of a desktop and a hosted application. When the widgets detects a problem with the site it is checking, it alerts the user with a 'beep', followed by the launch of a web browser, which is directed to a web application on watchmouse.com. There the site is checked from over 20 different locations worldwide.

Worldwide monitoring

The new version (2.0.4) brings continuous performance monitoring, even when the Mac is not connected to the Internet, by connecting the widget to a WatchMouse account (free or paid). In October 2005, WatchMouse released the first version of this widget, which was downloaded over 10.000 times.

WatchMouse has made the widget available free of charge "because we have become addicted to it, ever since we started using the first beta version of the widget", says creative director Niels Eijsbroek. "We give the widget away for free mainly for the fun part. And of course it's also important to bring site performance monitoring to the attention of our fellow Apple-users."

The free WatchMouse site monitoring widget can be downloaded from the Apple website:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/networking_security/watchmousesitemonitor.html

About WatchMouse

Companies can easily monitor their own Internet sites using WatchMouse's monitoring service. WatchMouse has been monitoring Internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies throughout the world since 2002. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. The services supplied by WatchMouse are available in nine languages, and analysis are performed from various locations and over numerous networks, using a world-wide monitoring network.

In 2005, WatchMouse was voted a Deloitte Rising Star in the Netherlands, as part of the Fast 50 awards; the list of the 50 fastest growing technology companies.

Further information can be found at: www.watchmouse.com

"Want to know the performance of your website?" (2006-11-29)

- WatchMouse launches Site Monitor for PC users –

Netherlands, November 29, 2006 - WatchMouse launches its free WatchMouse Site Monitor for Windows. This application provides PC users insight into the availability of their website(s) at all times. The Site Monitor can be downloaded for free at the WatchMouse website. Installing it only takes a minute.

The Site Monitor checks your company's site or your personal website at fixed intervals (5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes) from your own pc. When an error is found, or after 2 to 5 consecutive errors, you are alerted and the error is verified by all WatchMouse monitoring stations. Also, the availability of the site in the last 72 hours is shown in a performance chart.

The Site Monitor can be combined with a free WatchMouse account. This gives you the following extra benefits:

• The application can show you the monitoring results of all websites included in the account
• The monitoring is not only done from your own PC, but also from more than 20 WatchMouse checkpoints worldwide
• The application shows performance charts for any period in the Site Monitor
• In case of an alert the WatchMouse site is launched for more details
• Monitoring continues even when the PC is without an internet connection

In exchange for these extra benefits WatchMouse asks you to place a small uptime banner on the sites that are monitored.

The WatchMouse Site Monitor for Windows can be downloaded for free at http://www.watchmouse.com/windows/site_monitor.php Installing it only takes a minute.

WatchMouse and Badboy Software announce partnership (2008-04-03)

Partnership brings easy website transaction monitoring

WatchMouse is pleased to announce a partnership with Australia's Badboy Software. The partnership combines the immensely popular Badboy scripting tool with WatchMouse's market leading website performance monitoring, enabling customers to record complex transaction scripts and run them using a global infrastructure.

Owner and founder of Badboy Software, Simon Sadedin says, "With Badboy Software's in-depth experience in functional testing and WatchMouse's extensive infrastructure, technology and know-how for running enterprise grade monitoring solutions, we have a unique opportunity for collaboration."

The powerful Badboy scripting tool enables customers to professionally record all the actions involved in a web transaction. Designed to aid in the testing and development of complex dynamic applications, the Badboy tool contains dozens of features including a simple yet comprehensive capture/replay interface, load testing support, detailed reports, graphs etc.

WatchMouse CTO, Mark Pors explains, "Having integrated with Badboy, our customers can now upload their Badboy scripts directly into their WatchMouse console. Scripts can then be automatically and periodically run from WatchMouse's global infrastructure of 25+ checkpoints. This new functionality enables our customers to monitor their web applications 24/7 and know how their site behaves when customers access it from locations all around the world."

As a global leader in website performance monitoring, WatchMouse provides many of the world's largest companies with independent verifications of their website performance. With immediate results, automated alerting, simple set up and flexible subscriptions, WatchMouse offers the features, control and quality of service essential for today's online business.

The partnership between WatchMouse and Badboy Software provides customers with a market first: global, easy, powerful, web application testing.

To find out more about this new functionality and sign up for a free trial visit: http://www.watchmouse.com/scripting.php

Mark Pors
CTO
WatchMouse
http://www.watchmouse.com/

WatchMouse expands Website Monitoring Infrastructure to 35 Global Monitoring Stations (2008-09-01)

In order to meet customer demand, WatchMouse is proud to announce the expansion of its global infrastructure with another eight monitoring stations being deployed over the past two months. The new stations are in: India, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland and the USA. WatchMouse now offers 25 monitoring stations in major European and North American cities, with a further 10 stations spread across Africa, the Middle East, South America and Oceania.

WatchMouse's extensive infrastructure provides the means to accurately monitor sites and web applications from the perspective of users based in different global locations. Such multi-point monitoring is imperative as site performance varies greatly depending on the location of the user (e.g. customers in the USA might quickly access a site, while for users in Germany, the same site has errors or a long load time). WatchMouse CTO, Mark Pors explains that "Even if your site works well from your headquarters, customers may still have trouble reaching it from different external locations. As a slow or faulty site can frustrate users, damage the reputation of a company and result in lost sales, it is essential to monitor from more than one point."

As the vast majority of businesses are aware of the need for global performance monitoring, WatchMouse was surprised to find global performance issues on the sites of some major international organizations, including the social networking site Facebook. In recent research WatchMouse found that facebook.com performs well in the USA but showed serious user issues from many other locations.

WatchMouse’s market leading infrastructure can help international organizations identify performance issues. Equally, WatchMouse supports clients who require performance monitoring within a particular region by allowing monitoring to be restricted to a sub-set of monitoring stations. This feature is useful for companies that only trade within a large country (e.g. USA) or region (e.g. Europe) but still require comprehensive monitoring within their area of operation.

About WatchMouse

WatchMouse provides global performance monitoring to thousands of customers in over 70 countries. In addition to a market leading infrastructure, WatchMouse offers automated alerting and an advanced user interface for complete self-management of all monitoring features and subscription details.

WatchMouse Launches API-status.com (2010-01-20)

New Site Monitors and Measures Uptime of 26 Popular API and Cloud Services Websites; Report Reveals Amazon, Google and Yahoo Among the Best and Vimeo, foursquare and Yammer Among the Worst Performers

WatchMouse, a global industry leader in self-service website and application performance monitoring, announced the launch today of API-status.com, a new dedicated website for monitoring and measuring the real time availability and performance of the public APIs of 26 heavily trafficked, popular “cloud computing” mega web services including: Google Search, Google Maps, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, SalesForce, YouTube, Amazon, eBay, PayPal, Wikipedia and others.

API-status.com does a call and check for a valid result on each of the APIs, and if the result is wrong or is received after four seconds, it is noted as an error and unavailable. The percentage of availability or uptime is based on the number of errors reported; details on API-status.com include a seven-day history along with a 24-hour glance and performance indication by country.

"Nearly all websites nowadays include information from outside sources such as maps or social media feeds. It impacts millions of websites worldwide if these services and systems are slow or down and can invoke a global domino effect of breakages and slowness," states Mark Pors, CTO and co-founder of WatchMouse. "The four-second limit on the response time may seem strict, but it is actually a long time, especially when the (mash-up) sites need to do multiple API calls to present a complete page to the visitor."

According to a recent report produced by Forrester Research and Akamai, two seconds was revealed as the new threshold of acceptability for e-commerce web page response times.

30-Day Report Card and Methodology

WatchMouse monitored the availability of 26 API/cloud web services during the period of December 16, 2009 to January 16, 2010. The results found that Yammer API had the lowest availability with 96.06 percent uptime and Amazon, Google Maps, Google Search, last.fm, and Yahoo Maps with the highest availability with 100 percent uptime. In accordance with industry standards, availability of greater than or equal to 99.9 percent is regarded as "good" while anything below 99 percent is regarded as "poor" site uptime. The methodology for testing the sites includes one simple API call and check for a valid result. This typically means an authentication action for most APIs, including a login, followed by a search or listing action, plus a check of the expected result action. The expected result can immediately return as an error or if the expected result action is reported after four seconds, it is also logged as an error. These errors are used to create the percentage of availability or uptime for each of the sites. Each site is checked in real time using the WatchMouse Public Status Pages tool, which can be used to measure and report the availability of any public website. Companies use the tool, which is hosted on the Amazon platform to inform customers and report publicly on the status of their services.

Click here to read the full report of all 26 website services uptime or visit www.API-status.com for real time status and statistical data on each website.

About APIs

An application programming interface (API) is a set of data structures, protocols, routines and tools for accessing a web-based software application. The practice of publishing APIs allows web communities to create an open architecture for sharing content and data between communities and applications. Content that is created in one place can then be dynamically retreived, posted and/or updated in multiple locations on the Web.

About WatchMouse

Founded in 2002, WatchMouse is a global industry leader in self-service website and application performance monitoring. WatchMouse product tests the behavior and availability of websites, services and applications utilizing an infrastructure that includes 42 worldwide remote monitoring stations in 26 countries. Advanced remote monitoring helps eliminate website downtime, allows issues to be identified and resolved quickly and guarantees peace of mind that your website has been thoroughly and externally tested from the user’s perspective. WatchMouse’s web-based products are easily deployed and offer many features including: extensive reporting tools, root cause analysis, automated email and text/SMS alerts. WatchMouse supports Philips, ING, VeriSign and other leading global companies who depend on WatchMouse to provide independent confirmation of both in-house and suppliers’ website performance. WatchMouse is a privately held company headquartered in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Learn more at http://www.watchmouse.com.

IBM Tivoli Monitoring Express Universal Agent Multiple Heap Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities (2007-07-06)

IBM Tivoli Monitoring Express Universal Agent is prone to multiple buffer-overflow vulnerabilities because the application fails to bounds-check user-supplied data before copying it into an insufficiently sized memory buffer.

An attacker can exploit these issues to execute arbitrary code within the context of the vulnerable application. This may facilitate the compromise of affected servers. To leverage these issues, the attacker does not need to authenticate.

IBM Tivoli Monitoring Express 6.1 is affected.