CA delivers Unicenter 3.0 as cornerstone of solutions for e-business infrastructure management

Computer Associates (CA) has announced the general availability of Unicenter 3.0 Network and Systems Management (NSM), the cornerstone of the new Unicenter family of solutions - CA`s new approach to e-business infrastructure management.

Building on CA`s tradition of excellence in enterprise management, Unicenter 3.0 NSM features a revamped architecture to further ensure the 24x7 availability of servers, networks, operating systems and other critical IT resources.

"The release of Unicenter 3.0 represents one of the most significant accomplishments in CA`s proud 25 year history," said CA President and CEO Sanjay Kumar, speaking at CA World in Florida. "The innovations in Unicenter 3.0 will enable our customers to manage their e-business infrastructures more efficiently and proactively than ever before."

Unicenter 3.0 NSM leverages CA`s leading technology in the following areas to provide superior management of the health and availability of the heterogeneous e-business infrastructure:

Visualisation: Enhanced dynamic 2-D and 3-D visualisation that dramatically speed problem resolution and reduce IT training costs.

Personalisation: New management portals deliver job-specific information to IT staff, reducing IT learning and operations costs.

Root-Cause Analysis: New event correlation and root-cause analysis technologies provide faster, more accurate problem resolution.

Software Development Kit (SDK): Java-based, object-oriented services enable Unicenter to integrate with third party management tools as well as enable management of B2B, B2C and e-marketplace applications.

Common Services Infrastructure: Common state-of-the art components enable Unicenter 3.0 NSM to seamlessly integrate all of CA`s infrastructure management solutions.

Cluster Management: Management of the health and performance of all popular server cluster solutions - including those from Compaq, Microsoft, Linux and Unix vendors-enables Unicenter 3.0 to maintain high-availability environments.

With the delivery of Unicenter 3.0 NSM, CA is transforming the way its infrastructure management solutions are priced and brought to market. A new, simplified tiered-server pricing model replaces the previous model that used hardware capacity and power units to determine cost. By separating pricing from the deployment architecture, CA has made the licensing of Unicenter 3.0 NSM simpler than ever for customers.

CA is also delivering new releases of other solutions-including Unicenter Service Level Management and Unicenter Web Infrastructure Management -that extend the company`s established leadership in fast-growing e-business markets.

Unicenter Service Level Management version 2.0 helps enterprise IT departments and service providers translate complex network and systems status and performance information, gathered from large numbers of highly diverse data sources, into service-level measurements that both IT and business managers can understand. By proactively and automatically managing these service levels, CA customers can ensure end-users` quality-of-experience.

Available on Unix and Windows NT, version 2.0 supports multi-tier service agreements so organisations can measure service delivery through complex layers of providers. Using an email client, the new release also delivers more accurate service measurement by incorporating end-user response times and service levels.

In addition, Web infrastructure performance and service metrics can be incorporated into customised service-level reports, greatly enhancing their accuracy and usefulness.

To address one of the most under-managed yet critical components of IT infrastructure - Web application servers - CA has expanded its Web Infrastructure Management solution family. Unicenter Management for WebLogic and Unicenter Management for WebSphere are designed to help IT administrators manage Web application server resources while decreasing operational overhead.

These solutions ensure the performance and availability of e-business applications built on Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE) application servers, including the performance of Enterprise JavaBean (EJB)-embedded business logic. The solutions enable organisations to meet and exceed user service levels by:

* Ensuring EJB Health - Monitors and exercises EJB business logic for optimal performance of the applications.

* Automating Discovery of the Deployed Servlets - Improves IT efficiency and simplifies management of Java applications.

* Monitoring EJB Server Components - Ensures the health and optimal performance of the EJB application server.

* Accelerating Problem Resolution - Automates complex problem resolution management.

For more information on these solutions as well as the rest of the new Unicenter family of infrastructure management solutions, please visit http://ca.com/solutions/enterprise/.