Nimsoft Press Release

UK Maritime & Coastguard Agency Standardises on NimBUS

NimBUS SLM Technology Plays Key Role in MSC Napoli Rescue Efforts in January 2007

London, UK - July 12, 2007 – Nimsoft, an emerging leader in service level management, today announced that the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) has adopted NimBUS as its corporate standard for monitoring IT infrastructure and key applications across the entire organisation.  The NimBUS solution is being deployed across the agency over the course of 2007 to monitor vital communication and search and rescue systems.  The move comes as the MCA prepares to complete its implementation of an EU directive that extends the UK’s vessel traffic monitoring covering over 10,500 miles of coastline, covering some of the busiest international seaways in the World such as the Dover Strait,  which can see over 400 large vessel movements at any point in time. 

The MCA currently monitors over 1,000 Class A (vessel over 300 tonnes) vessels at any one time and manages approximately 16,000 Search and Rescue (SAR) incidents a year.  The rescue, beaching and subsequent salvage of a container ship off the South West coast of England in January 2007 is a recent, high-profile incident.

Sophisticated systems lie at the heart of the MCA’s ability to co-ordinate search and rescue as well as counter pollution operations, as well as enforce maritime safety policies. The MCA operates 19 Maritime Rescue CoOrdination Centres (MRCC) along the UK coastline, which house critical systems, such as the Automatic Identification System (AIS), a Navigation Warning System and an Integrated Coastguard Communication System (ICCS).  The Agency’s Incident Management System (IMS) provides the mechanism to coordinate and record search and rescue events.  These systems run across over 130 Windows servers at locations around the UK and are managed remotely using NimBUS

Successful search and rescue operations are anchored on the ability to bring together a huge volume of information and data, quickly and efficiently. “The management of the MSC Napoli incident, a 68,000 tonne container ship that battled 40-foot waves and 75-mph winds, illustrates that having these systems available and operational saves lives and protects the environment.  Case in point, our AIS system located the position of the vessel in distress., which was central to coordinating the rescue of the 26-member crew and then, the protection of the environment by the beaching of the vessel.  NimBUS provides us with the capability to manage these systems proactively, by monitoring their availability and anticipating potential issues before they become major problems,” said Wayne Quinn, Corporate Systems (SAR) technical manager.

“As we prepare to complete the implementation of this new maritime directive, AIS will soon be monitoring  over 3,000 vessels within 30 miles of the UK coastline at any one point in time. Not only does NimBUS provide the necessary tools to manage this new workload, it enables us to prioritize IT events according to their impact on our IT systems that are vital to security and our search and rescue efforts,” he added.

“NimBUS has proven that it effectively manages distributed and demanding environments with a minimum amount of effort. We deliberately designed our solution to enable customers to view system-wide health at a glance and resolve problems systematically and methodically,” said Gary Read, president and CEO, Nimsoft. “The fact that it has been adopted as a corporate standard speaks volumes about the way we have engineered a SLM solution that binds together technology, simplicity and functionality.”

About the Maritime and Coastguard Agency

The MCA implements the UK Government’s maritime safety policy, which includes co-coordinating search and rescue at sea through Her Majesty’s Coastguard, and checking that ships meet UK and international safety rules. They are responsible for preventing the loss of lives at the coast and at sea, to ensure that ships are safe, and to prevent coastal pollution.       
  

About Nimsoft

Nimsoft is the premier provider of business-focused service level management solutions that customers can easily deploy and use.  The company’s service level management solutions – NimBUS – are used by hundreds of companies across diverse industries to manage complex networked systems and meet service level agreement targets.  Nimsoft solutions combine advanced SLM functionality and broad platform coverage with unprecedented ease of implementation, deployment and use.

NimBUS, Nimsoft and the Nimsoft logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nimsoft Inc.  All other company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. 

© 2007 Nimsoft Inc. all rights reserved.

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