CA delivers IT analytics with Unicenter Asset Intelligence r11

Computer Associates International, Inc today announced Unicenter Asset Intelligence r11, a powerful asset management solution that provides technology managers with actionable intelligence to make smarter, more business-driven decisions about heterogeneous IT resources and processes across the enterprise.

The first in a series of IT analytical applications from CA, Unicenter Asset Intelligence provides an executive-level view into key IT performance indicators - enabling organisations to pinpoint anomalies, avoid unnecessary expenditures, assess risk and comply with industry regulations. It empowers IT executives to implement best practices in optimising asset utilisation, negotiating purchase and service contracts, and enforcing desktop configuration standards.

Unicenter Asset Intelligence conducts intelligent analytics based on the critical data collected by Unicenter Asset Management. It combines technical and operational data about IT assets with information about a company`s organisational structure, which can be derived from e-mail, user directories and/or human resource systems. This provides valuable insight into how an organisation is leveraging enterprise-wide hardware and software assets over time, down to department and user levels.

A simple setup, intuitive interface and minimal learning curve help organisations to quickly gain in-depth knowledge about their diverse enterprise resources - including the number, location, use, types and users of assets.

It also enables managers to easily identify resources that are unmanaged, under-utilised, run unsupported operating systems or could be consolidated. "One of the great things about CA`s Unicenter Asset Intelligence is that it helps us allocate desktop processing power to those who need it and foster productivity, while avoiding wasteful placement of resources to those who don`t," said Harry Butler, support centre manager at EFW, a full-service electronics supplier for the defence and aerospace industries. "UAI also enables us to quickly answer questions from line-of-business managers about how we`re allocating our technology resources and why."

Knowledge gleaned from Unicenter Asset Intelligence is extremely useful for stretching IT budgets and ensuring operational efficiency. For example, if IT managers have to support a new application, they can quickly determine whether existing servers with similar configurations and ample capacity can support the application, thus avoiding any unnecessary expenditure.

The release of Unicenter Asset Intelligence extends CA`s leadership in asset management software.

In its market analysis report entitled "Worldwide IT Asset Management Software 2004-2008 Forecast and 2003 Vendor Shares: It Was a Very Good Year", IDC named CA the worldwide leader in asset management software with a 12.7% market share. In addition, CA was ranked as a market leader for the second consecutive year in Meta Group`s METAspectrum for Asset Portfolio Management Tools.

"Unicenter Asset Intelligence r11 significantly enhances CA`s industry-leading IT asset management solutions portfolio by providing IT decision-makers with even more sophisticated intelligence and business analytics," said Allan Andersen, director of Unicenter product management at CA. "These capabilities will generate significant ROI to corporate IT organisations under pressure to deliver greater technological capabilities despite tighter IT budgets."

Unicenter Asset Intelligence supports CA`s common management database (MDB), a centralised, integrated repository for all management data stored by CA and third-party products. MDB enables CA customers to leverage both CA and non-CA management solutions to create powerful, holistic management environments that better enable IT organisations to optimise service levels and improve operational efficiency.

CA plans to extend its IT analytics intelligence technology to its service management, network management and storage management solutions later this year.