ADVANTAGE®, Business Service Management Software from Magnum Technologies Lights the Way for Starz Entertainment Group VongoSM Launch

MINNEAPOLIS – http://www.magnum-tech.com – Magnum Technologies®, the leading provider of IT Business Service Management software, today announced its role as a critical enterprise-wide IT infrastructure monitoring software solution provider, which has enabled the successful launch of Starz Entertainment Group’s Vongo service.

In order to successfully offer more than 1,000 movies and video selections and a live streaming Starz TV channel to subscribers using broadband or wireless-enabled devices, Starz Entertainment Group relies solely on Magnum Technologies’ Business Service Management (BSM) software for not only monitoring its infrastructure, but for also monitoring key services provided by its partners.

“Magnum Technologies deployed ADVANTAGE®, a superior business service management and information technology monitoring system, that gave us the critical data necessary to adjust our infrastructure and processes in real-time in order to support our goal of the ultimate Vongo experience,” said Richard Brownrigg, vice president of technology for SEG. “A surprising benefit of ADVANTAGE® is its powerful ability to see issues in our partner environments that could ultimately impact the SEG business applications.”

The ADVANTAGE® BSM system was deployed at SEG in order to detect and immediately notify operations and business staff of any technology issue that could ultimately affect the operation of the Vongo-branded entertainment system. Not only is the product currently effective in the real time performance monitoring of IT and its associated business impact, but it was also used during development to fine tune different portions of the infrastructure and partner integration prior to launch. This has enabled SEG to focus on Vongo end user performance, guaranteeing customer’s seamless wireless entertainment satisfaction.

“The entire deployment of ADVANTAGE® Business Service Management software was executed with a focus on supporting the SEG rollout of ITIL best practices,” said Gregory Crow, Magnum Technologies CEO. “ITIL was one of the requirements which presented a need to create an industry first, real time dashboard view of how IT performance measures against true business goals. ADVANTAGE® is satisfying this requirement for SEG while monitoring their service level goals for the launch of their breakthrough Vongo entertainment service.”

Success of the ADVANTAGE® BSM deployment was initially celebrated when system and database performance, as well as network loads, could be quantifiably measured prior to – as a baseline of performance – and again after full production cutover to the Vongo process.

ADVANTAGE® was installed with the vision of integrating with SEG’s Remedy system so that when there is an incident within the IT infrastructure, a trouble ticket is issued. ADVANTAGE® can then decipher the threat of the incident and translate how it will impact the Vongo production process and ultimately affect subscribers from a customer care/billing perspective. Within seconds of this automated analysis, ADVANTAGE® communicates the severity of the infrastructure or partner incident to the appropriate IT personnel.

The ADVANTAGE® rollout within SEG was also leveraged as the system to measure and manage the performance of its Voice over IP (VoIP) installation and currently serves as a cornerstone for a future planned Configuration Management Database (CMDB) deployment.

About Magnum Technologies
Magnum Technologies, www.magnum-tech.com develops software solutions that align IT operations with enterprise priorities. Magnum’s suite of automated management solutions includes DIAGNOSEIT®, COORDINATOR™, CAP-TREND® and its flagship product, ADVANTAGE®. Magnum’s software solutions are designed to easily integrate with and enhance the effectiveness of existing management platforms by monitoring and measuring IT performance from a line-of-business perspective. Magnum Technologies clients include Fort Sam Houston, BRG and Starz. To learn more about Magnum Technologies, visit www.magnum-tech.com.

About Starz
Starz Entertainment Group LLC (SEG) is the largest provider of premium movie services in the United States. SEG offers 13 digital movie channels including the flagship Starz® and Encore® channels with approximately 14 million and 25 million subscribers respectively. Starz Entertainment Group airs more than 750 movies per month across its pay TV channels and is a forerunner in offering its subscribers advanced services such as Starz HDTV, Starz On Demand® and VongoSM. Starz Entertainment Group is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation (NYSE: L, LMCb), www.starz.com.