American Standard Italian business unit taps CA`s Unicenter TNG to manage IT Infrastructure

Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) has announced that Ceramica Dolomite, a leading Italian manufacturer of ceramic sanitaryware, has chosen CA`s industry-leading Unicenter TNG enterprise management software to handle maintenance, virus protection, software delivery and other essential functions across its Pan-European corporate network.

In addition to helping Ceramica Dolomite successfully manage its growing IT infrastructure, Unicenter TNG will play a major role in integrating operations with American Standard Corp., which acquired the company earlier this year.

Ceramica Dolomite has 1,100 employees and annual revenues of Lt. 162 billion (about US $100 million). Operations are spread among production facilities in Italy, and commercial bureaus throughout Italy and Germany.

Prior to Unicenter TNG, a six-person team headed by Chief Information Officer Loris Dal Magro was struggling to manage numerous servers, including six machines dedicated to SQL databases -and a variety of other storage, printing, Web and communications servers - which supported clients dispersed over three Token Ring LANs. In addition, the staff was responsible for supporting a full range of traditional business and office automation applications. Ceramica Dolomite`s infrastructure also included an AS/400 server and workstations used for computer-aided design and control of production plants.

"The workload had become very heavy for our small team, especially considering the fact that four of us focused on the midrange system," said Dal Magro. "Our infrastructure may not seem that large, but it is not easy for six people to do the troubleshooting, administration and application deployment required to support three locations. We began to develop a serious backlog of internal requests. Eventually, the availability of data and network resources were becoming major problems."

Ceramica Dolomite then decided to go for an enterprise management solution and considered the major competitors on the market, but ultimately selected Unicenter TNG. "CA`s Unicenter TNG seemed the most reasonable choice from every point of view," said Dal Magro.

Dal Magro explained that the modularity of Unicenter TNG was particularly appealing. "The ability to select specific functions for our initial deployment, and to then add options incrementally, gave us the flexibility we need to reconcile our technical priorities and our budget limitations," he said.

Ceramica Dolomite was favorably impressed by the timely, direct support of CA during the company`s evaluation, which included a visit to the CA virtual enterprise center in Basiglio, near Milan.

According to Dal Magro, Unicenter TNG offered surprising rapid deployment capabilities. "We really wanted to get to the most important benefits quickly," he said. "Unicenter TNG allowed us to get things like server monitoring and virus protection in place quickly, so that we could ensure the stability of our computing environment right away."

The initial Unicenter TNG components implemented by Ceramica Dolomite include asset management, remote control, software delivery, and advanced anti-virus, as well as agents for controlling SQL Server, MS-Exchange and specified storage resources. As a result of its Unicenter TNG deployment, the company expects to save 1,400 person-hours annually, while achieving significantly improved IT service levels.

"In the past we had to spend from 8 to 12 hours on every computer in the company for maintenance activities," said Dal Magro. "We count on saving quite a lot of time without having to hire new staff. Considering this and other benefits, we believe our financial investment has been more than justified."

In the next phase of its deployment, Ceramica Dolomite will add enhanced Unicenter TNG back-up and advanced help desk capabilities. Unicenter TNG will also help Ceramica Dolomite with its planned implementation of an internally-hosted Website.

In addition to streamlining IT tasks, Unicenter TNG is enabling the company to avoid unnecessary trips to plants in Pordenone and Siena, Italy - allowing IT personnel to remain in the company`s Belluno headquarters, where they face a set of highly challenging re-structuring tasks.

An Agent for Change The re-structuring Ceramica`s IT department faces is a result of its purchase by global ceramic giant American Standard. Ceramica Dolomite will now have to integrate its operations with that of Ideal Standard, the American Standard subsidiary that was its principal competitor in Italy before the acquisition.

This is particularly challenging prospect because it represents a significant shift in architecture for Ceramica Dolomite, which will move from an architecture based on midrange IBM computers to a pure client/server environment. The integration will also require Ceramica Dolomite to migrate to SAP R/3 and WAN connectivity based on a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

"Those infrastructure changes would be impossible to implement in a compressed time frame if we didn`t have Unicenter TNG to control and manage all the critical elements in our environment," said Dal Magro. "Unicenter TNG is thus not only a vital tool for keeping what we already have under more efficient control, it is also critical for responding to necessary changes with requisite speed."

"Ceramica Dolomite is a prime example of how Unicenter TNG can deliver significant business benefits to aggressive, mid-market companies," said Alfonso Nobilio, divisional vice president, Computer Associates Italy, Milano. "By automating IT processes and eliminating obstacles of distance and time, Unicenter TNG can empower growing organization such as Ceramica Dolomite to make better use of information technologies while helping control costs."