Chinese commercial services bank selects CA`s Unicenter

Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) today announced that Huaxia Bank Jinan Branch, Shandong Province`s new commercial services bank, has selected CA`s Unicenter as the management platform to further expand its innovative commercial banking services throughout the region.

The bank is deploying Unicenter to ensure the reliability and performance of its network, systems and databases, optimizing overall system functionality while reducing management overhead.

"Extranet-based services are the future of commercial banking, which means that success is largely contingent on the smooth, efficient functioning of network and systems infrastructure," said Zhang Shoukai, Network Department Manager of Huaxia Bank Jinan Branch. "CA`s superb Unicenter solutions are enabling us to achieve this critical management requirement and continue the expansion of our business."

Technology has played a key role in enabling Huaxia Bank`s Jinan Branch to introduce new innovative products and services to its customers. The bank has created a leading-edge progressive commercial banking service structure that combines both conventional and virtual banking services, including Internet and dial-up banking. The scope and complexity of the bank`s UNIX and Windows NT-based environment grew along with its evolving business - making the reliable, cost-effective operation of this environment a strategic issue.

After an extensive evaluation, Huaxia Bank Jinan Branch selected CA`s Unicenter as its enterprise network and systems management solution.

"With the rise of electronic banking, it has become increasingly critical for financial institutions such as Huaxia Bank Jinan Branch to maximize the stability of their extensive network environments while keeping associated management costs and overhead down," said Cliff Yung, senior vice president of CA Greater China. "Unicenter solutions are enabling Huaxia Bank Jinan Branch to fulfill this essential requirement, providing the bank with a substantial competitive advantage as it continues to offer new electronic financial services to its growing customer base."

Unicenter Network and Systems Management (Unicenter NSM) enables Jinan Branch`s IT administrators to monitor the bank`s distributed computing environment through centralized, highly intuitive 2-D and 3-D visualization. When a network or performance problem occurs, Unicenter NSM displays the problem graphically, indicating its impact on the bank`s critical business processes. This allows IT administrators to stay in control of the environment, while greatly reducing their workload.

Huaxia Bank Jinan Branch is also deploying Unicenter Performance Management, which enables automated, real-time monitoring of the computing environment`s performance. It supports RMON protocol network devices and peripherals, and generates reports with historical logs and dynamic graphic charts of status and usage data. In addition, Huaxia Bank Jinan Branch is implementing Unicenter Advanced Network Operations to monitor network health, issue appropriate alerts when network problems or performance bottlenecks occur, and empower IT administrators to rapidly resolve and even avoid network problems.

Unicenter Database Management - which monitors and diagnoses database objects, SQL statements, users, processes, and devices - is also being deployed to ensure the stability of critical services at the bank.

CA Services worked closely with Huaxia Bank Jinan Branch`s IT administrators throughout the planning and implementation of the entire project. CA Services assisted with the assessment of the bank`s requirements, designed an effective total management solution, helped to formulate an efficient plan for ongoing management operations and provided training for the bank`s IT administrators.