Conforama takes control of IT infrastructure with CA Unicenter

Computer Associates International, Inc (CA) has announced that home furnishings leader Conforama Group (Conforama) has selected CA`s Unicenter to proactively monitor its distributed enterprise-wide IT systems in order to ensure the full-time availability of mission-critical e-business processes.

Unicenter provides Conforama with a complete picture of the health and performance of its distributed systems from a central, intuitive interface - automatically alerting administrators to potential problems before they affect critical services. This increased uptime improves the productivity of Conforama`s staff and enables the company to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Prior to implementing Unicenter, Conforama used a variety of disparate monitoring tools and applications. These tools proved inadequate for managing an IT environment as complex and critical as Conforama`s.

"Before deploying Unicenter, we had trouble identifying problems with our information systems until distribution processes were already affected," said R'egis Verlaine, IT production manager, Conforama. "Unicenter gives our staff a full view of the IT landscape in real-time and enables us to correct potential problems prior to them becoming actual problems."

Unicenter is particularly well suited for Conforama`s increasingly diverse computing environment. It ensures the availability and high performance of the company`s heterogeneous network, consisting of Unix, Windows NT and AS/400 servers and Lotus Notes, Oracle, and MQSeries applications, running at headquarters and in each store. In addition, by automating many administrative tasks, Unicenter reduces overhead costs and allows Conforama personnel to focus on more strategic e-business initiatives.

"We are quite impressed with the ease and speed at which Unicenter was deployed throughout our complex organization, as well as the extent to which it frees our staff to concentrate on growing the business," said Verlaine. "We have also seen how rapidly adaptable Unicenter can be, that`s important given the unpredictable future of our IT environment."

CA Services assisted in the implementation of Unicenter.

"Unicenter has enabled Conforama to significantly strengthen control over its IT infrastructure, which is essential to ensure optimum availability of the strategic business processes that the infrastructure supports," said Derek Masters, general manager, CA France. "As information technology gains importance in Conforama`s day-to-day operations, Unicenter will become an increasingly strategic resource."