Compuware Corp. this week is upgrading its Vantage application service management software to highlight predictive analysis and performance assessment.

Called Vantage Pre-production Service Assurance and also known as Vantage Version 9.5, the product focuses on predictive performance prior to application rollout. For example, it helps users understand what thread of an application is causing poor performance.

?What (Pre-production Service Assurance) means is the ability to help organizations reduce the risk and cost of rolling applications into production that (then) don?t meet their performance goals,? said Lloyd Bloom, Compuware Vantage product manager.

New predictive analysis capabilities enable IT organizations to analyze application performance from a lab or production snapshot, Compuware said. Featured are ?what if? scenarios allowing for immediate evaluation of performance enhancement alternatives, such as changes to application behavior, network bandwidth and latency, or server response times. This information is used in determining adjustments to make prior to application deployment.

Performance assessment enabled by integration between Vantage and the company?s QACenter automated testing product enables organizations to gauge the ability to meet service expectations by pushing production-level workloads into an instrumented preproduction environment. Users can determine expected production service levels for specific application, server, and network configurations, according to Compuware. QAcenter is sold separately.

The new Vantage offering combines Compuware?s Application Vantage and Application Expert capabilities. Although Vantage performed application troubleshooting before, the new version combines components for predictive analysis and performance assessment, according to Compuware.

Vantage Pre-production Service Assurance is available this week, carrying an entry price of $US25,000.