September 23, 1999

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, contact:

Greg Ferrar
Flowerfire
1722 Westhaven Drive
Champaign IL 61820-7053

Phone: (217) 898-6131
Email: sawmill@flowerfire.com
Web: http://www.flowerfire.com/sawmill/

Flowerfire Sawmill 5.0 Log Analysis Tool -
New Version Provides Superior Performance With Large Log Files

Champaign, IL - Flowerfire today announces the release of Sawmill 5.0, the
latest version of its hierarchical log file analysis tool.

The new version includes improvements in almost all areas. A partial list
of enhancements:

* Many performance enhancements make this version up to five times
as fast as the previous version during log reading, and much more
interactive during browsing and configuration.

* User-configurable cross-referencing allows tracking of unlimited
log fields, with minimal overhead for additional fields.

* Browse-time limiting of statistics data gives the user flexibility
to zoom in on exactly the data they're interested in.

* Complete redesign of configuration interface provides faster
navigation between the options pages and a more intuitive
structure.

* Complete redesign of statistics browsing interface provides easier
and faster access to more types of information.

* Much more powerful and intuitive log filters.

* Offline HTML generation makes it possible to pre-generate HTML
reports which can be viewed later when Sawmill is not running, or
uploaded to another server for viewing.

* Improved "Update Database" operation automatically recognizes and
skips log data which has already been processed, for true one-step
updating.

* Automatic on-the-fly decompression of gzipped log data.

* Improved support for user-specified log formats.

* Improved memory management reduces likelyhood of out-of-memory
errors, and reduces memory usage during idle periods.

* New "Expire Database" feature automatically removes data from the
database when it gets older than a user-selectable age.

* New scheduler lets you schedule database builds, updates, etc. to
occur automatically at regular times.

* Many other new features, for a total of 233 new features.

"With this version, Sawmill has become capable of handling even the largest
datasets, " said Greg Ferrar, product manager for Sawmill. "We have
customers with tens of gigabytes of log data who have processed it with
Sawmill 5. We've improved the performance of database building and
updating, configuration management, and statistics viewing to make Sawmill
a viable solution for the analysis of logs of any size."

Users of version 4.0 will recognize the new 5.0 interface, but just
barely-- it features several major improvements, and many minor ones. The
new statistics browsing interface shows only a single view of the data at a
time, simplifying the statistics and speeding browsing. The new
configuration interface, similarly, shows only a single page of options at
a time, making it easier and faster for users to flip between option pages.
The entire menu structure has been reworked to make it more intuitive and
faster to navigate.

"Our customers and testers gave us tons of feedback about what they liked
and disliked about version 4, and what they wanted to see in version 5,"
said Greg Ferrar. "They wanted faster and more intelligent database
updating; we added it. They wanted to be able to track dozens of database
fields without it bloating their database; Sawmill 5 lets you do that.
Whatever they asked for, we did, and now we've got a new version that we're
all very pleased with."

Sawmill runs either as a CGI program or as its own web server on Windows
95/NT, MacOS, most variants of UNIX, and BeOS, and publishes an advanced
graphical user interface. Through this interface, users can view web site
statistics in attractive pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs, and numerical
tables. The HTML interface also allows Sawmill to be configured remotely
from any web browser.

Sawmill's statistics pages are hierarchical, intuitive, and heavily
crosslinked for easy navigation. Sawmill provides an extensive set of
powerful features, including a persistent database, fine control over the
appearance of statistics pages, and versatile log filtering options.
Complete documentation of these and other features is built directly into
the program.

Sawmill is available for Windows 95/NT, MacOS, SPARC Solaris, x86 Solaris,
SunOS 4, HP/UX 9, HP/UX 10, Digital UNIX, Linux, FreeBSD (and compatibles),
MkLinux, AIX, IRIX, and BeOS. Sawmill costs $199 for a 2-user license, $79
for each additional user, and $999 for an unlimited-user license. A
fully-functional 30-day trial version can be downloaded from Flowerfire's
web site, and Sawmill comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Greg Ferrar, Sawmill Product Manager, Flowerfire

email: sawmill@flowerfire.com
voice: (217) 898-6131
fax: (217) 356-5199
web: http://www.flowerfire.com/sawmill/