Unicenter Service Management helps optimise IT investments, align them with business objectives

Computer Associates International, Inc (NYSE: CA) today announced general availability of Unicenter Service Management, the industry`s most comprehensive solution for managing the business of IT.

Unicenter Service Management enables organisations to optimise IT investments and align them with business objectives, through greater visibility and control over the resources, costs and performance of IT services.

It significantly enhances the ability of IT executives to evaluate competing project demands against business objectives, reduce portfolio risk and support more precise incorporation of technology costs into enterprise profit and loss reporting.

CA Technology Services provides complementary services for implementing Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) service management best practices and improving IT governance. Effective, fiscally sound IT governance is increasingly important to organisations, which are under growing pressure to optimise the efficiency of IT operations.

"As the demands on IT continue to grow at a much faster pace than available resources, our customers need to significantly improve the way they manage service delivery across the enterprise," said Jacob Lamm, senior vice-president of Unicenter service management at CA. "CA has responded by releasing a comprehensive service management portfolio that empowers customers to bring sound business discipline to every stage of the IT service lifecycle."

Unicenter Service Management provides comprehensive IT financial administration and service delivery functionality. It is integrated with CA`s leading service desk, service level management and financial asset management products and leverages a common technology stack under CA`s Enterprise Infrastructure Management (EIM) strategy. EIM enables IT organisations to manage assets, support users, define policies and allocate costs from a business perspective.

"To run IT as a business, it is imperative to quantify the utilisation of technology services in financial terms," said John Holden, research analyst at Butler Group. "CA is addressing this critical issue as part of a total service management solution that enables optimised alignment of IT decision-making with business drivers."

Products in Unicenter Service Management encompass service activation, service level management, and service costing and billing.

* Unicenter Service Catalog 2.2 -simplifies the administration and management of IT services to automate service requests and subscriptions by users and customers.

* Unicenter Service Fulfillment 2.2 - helps ensure consistency and reduce costs by automating business processes, including the delivery of IT services to internal or external customers, and the management of service activation, service approval and process flow.

* Unicenter Service Meter 2.2 - provides accurate usage metrics by quantifying how IT services are performed and consumed within an organisation.

* Unicenter Service Assure 2.2 - defines and formalises the relationship between IT and its users, customers and partners, effectively enabling a full lifecycle management of service level agreements (SLAs).

* Unicenter Service Accounting 2.2 - enables financial accountability by providing budgeting and planning controls and costing based on actual IT service usage.

Unicenter Service Management enables customers to implement service management best practices across operations, storage, security and lifecycle management - including the chargeback of costs to IT service delivery, the correlation of IT assets to services, and the alignment of IT service levels with business processes and priorities.

"CA`s expertise in IT service management, combined with Bearing Point`s service offerings, will provide customers with a powerful artillery aimed at effectively managing their IT operations while reducing overall IT costs to the business," said Pierre Champigneulle, managing director with BearingPoint`s Infrastructure Solutions practice.