CA announces Open Desktop Management Initiative

Business Wire, Sept 18, 1996

NETWORLD INTEROP, ATLANTA--September 18, 1996--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

ABN-AMRO Services Company: "CA's ODMI Will Help Us Cost-Effectively Manage And Control Thousands Of Desktops"

CA-Unicenter To Provide Industry's First Fully Bi-Directional Approach To Managing Desktop Information

Computer Associates International, Inc. today announced The Open Desktop Management Initiative, a multi-faceted program that centers on CA's new open desktop management interface, allowing the integration of information from DMI-compliant third party tools into CA-Unicenter.

The CA Open Desktop Management Initiative also features a joint effort between CA and Microsoft to utilize HyperMedia Management (HMM) technology to provide a mission-critical infrastructure for managing enterprise applications, including those on the World Wide Web, and an alliance with Intel Corp. that provides for advanced management of Pentium Pro-based servers.

As part of the initiative, CA is joining the Desktop Management Task Force, whose DMI (Desktop Management Interface) 2.0 is reaching critical mass, to ensure that CA clients can perform full desktop management using industry standards.

"CA's Open Management Desktop Initiative will dramatically lower the total cost of ownership of both desktops and servers by delivering an open management environment," said Sam Greenblatt, CA vice president of advanced technology. "And as an open initiative, it allows our clients to leverage management technology they already have in place."

"We have large LAN environments and more than 200 branch locations. Capturing management information in an environment like this has been a problem. CA's ODMI will help us cost-effectively manage and control thousands of desktops," said Bruce Jacobs, group senior vice president at ABN-AMRO Services Company, Inc. in Chicago.

CA's new Open Desktop Management Interface expands on the DMI 2.0 specification and integrates critical information on the desktop with other enterprise data to provide a complete view of the IT infrastructure. Through this interface, CA-Unicenter provides the industry's first fully bi-directional approach to managing desktop information, as well as the ability to gather information from and perform proactive management on desktop assets. CA-Unicenter clients can completely integrate the desktop manager of their choice without writing any code.

"Computer Associates is leading the effort to deliver pragmatic end-to-end enterprise management by building an economical bridge between the client and server management environments," said Brandon Musler, analyst at Illuminata Inc. in Nashua, NH. "CA's Open Desktop Management Interface will simplify use and management of desktop assets for end-users and IT professionals respectively. This step not only demonstrates CA-Unicenter's flexibility by incorporating information from the spectrum of installed PC agents, but also invites increasing third-party participation in the evolution of that architecture."

CA-Unicenter will now manage information from a wide range of DMI-compliant tools including: Attachmate's NetWizard; CapaCity's NetCon; Compaq's Insight Manager; Hewlett-Packard's OpenView; IBM's NetView for OS/2; IBM's SystemView Common Agent, Intel's LANDesk Manager; Microsoft's System Management System; Novell's ManageWise; Symantec's Norton Administrator; and SunSoft's SunNet Manager.

Unlike framework-based approaches that require vendors to adapt their tools to custom interfaces, CA's approach provides a ready-made way for its central management platform to access local management tools without requiring special effort by clients or vendors.

"With the Open Desktop Initiative, CA is responding to industry conditions and supporting customers' system management needs," said Sue Aldrich, senior consultant and editor, Patricia Seybold Group. "This initiative leverages customer investment by making use of existing desktop agents, rather than expanding the population which would create another management headache. The initiative also demonstrates CA's ability to extend existing CA and DMI capabilities to new technologies, such as the Pentium Pro."

"The ODMI solidifies CA-Unicenter's position as a strategic end-to-end management solution to incorporate our entire environment," said Harry Banks, IS Manager at Best Products, Inc., a nationwide $1.5 billion retail operation specializing in fine jewelry and decorator home furnishings.

In July, HMMS and HMMP were proposed as part of an industry-wide effort to define cross-platform Web-based enterprise management. During a keynote address by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at CA-World '96 last month, Bob Kruger, Microsoft's General Manager of System Management System and SNA Server Group, demonstrated CA's HyperMedia Management interface to CA-Unicenter utilizing CA-Unicenter TNG.

In addition, CA and Intel have created the first integrated solution that consolidates data from Intel's Pentium Pro processor-based servers and correlates it into useable management information. The new solution tightly integrates CA-Unicenter TNG with built-in board level hardware and software instrumentation, eliminating the need for clients to maintain custom interfaces for server management.