CA`s new asset management solution unifies financial stewardship of technology assets

CA has announced CA Asset Management r11, an integrated solution that helps customers reduce costs and improve decision-making by optimising the technical, operational and financial performance of their IT resources.

Leveraging CA`s strategic Integration Platform, CA Asset Management helps organisations address such critical IT challenges as the mounting pressure to improve compliance and financial stewardship over IT assets and the growing need to conform to industry best practices such as ITIL.

"Our business environment is complex, and managing IT assets is as much a function of planning and budgeting as it is of location and ownership," said Al Porco, chief information officer for New York City`s Kings County Medical Centre. "In addition to telling us `what` and `where`, CA`s Asset Management solution empowers us to more effectively plan and measure the financial impact of IT assets on our operations."

CA Asset Management supports CA`s Enterprise IT Management (EITM) vision by seamlessly merging IT asset management functions such as discovery and inventory, software licence management, vendor and contract management and financial management. It also provides unparalleled decision support analytics for all categories of assets - whether they are leased, licensed, or owned outright - across the entire planning-to-disposal lifecycle.

"CIOs are under tremendous pressure to improve the financial stewardship of IT assets," said Jacob Lamm, senior vice-president and general manager of CA`s Business Service Optimisation unit. "Our new Asset Management solution helps executives align IT assets with core business functions, leverage existing investments to avoid redundancy, and develop precise financial models for IT infrastructure planning."

At the heart of CA Asset Management is a unique and flexible central management database that enables organisations to exert greater control over IT assets, automate IT operations, and make better decisions about resource and budget allocation. A new reconciliation engine enables discovered assets to be reconciled against owned assets, tying together the operational and financial characteristics of IT assets. This significantly reduces an organisation`s exposure to risk during a compliance audit.

By leveraging information from a single repository, CA Asset Management helps ensure business decisions are based on common and accurate asset data. It provides a unique view into key performance indicators, such as utilisation and vendor software error and resolution tracking, enabling managers to quickly identify opportunities for increased efficiencies and cost savings enterprise-wide. A single Web interface provides an integrated view of assets and data from CA`s IT management applications - including network usage, software metering and help-desk solutions - enabling organisations to improve the quality, visibility, flexibility and availability of IT services.

CA Asset Management tracks all aspects of software licences - including usage rights, payment history and purchase order numbers - and compares owned licences to discovered instances, including variations that indicate over- or under-utilisation and unnecessary costs. It also tracks and categorises all asset-related costs, enabling organisations to analyse the financial impact of assets across the enterprise and facilitate adoption of ITIL and other industry best practices.

CA Asset Management further helps ensure software licence compliance by automatically correlating all discovered software instances with their corresponding licences. A global CA research team maintains and continuously updates a software signature database that is capable of recognising thousands of versions of software.

"To make informed business decisions, progressive IT organisations like our customer, Kings County, rely on accurate data regarding the composition and usage of their IT asset base," said Josh Gervey, managing consultant and enterprise management practice director, CompuCom Systems, a leading managed service provider.

"CA`s Asset Management solution enables us to provide our clients with information that is reliable, useful and accessible. This in turn allows us to dramatically improve asset oversight, increase efficiency and identify new and innovative opportunities for cost savings."

CA Asset Management integrates three new and enhanced products - Unicenter Asset Intelligence r11 SP1, Unicenter Asset Management r11 and Unicenter Asset Portfolio Management r11. The products also can be licensed separately.

According to Gartner, CA was the worldwide market leader based on new licence revenue in IT Asset Management in 2004 with a 27% share.*

* Gartner, Inc, "Market Share: Enterprise Management, Worldwide, 2004", Laurie Wurster, 22 June 2005.