CA Asset Management – The Hub Of IT Operations

I have often written about the important role that Asset Management should play in the ongoing delivery of IT services. CA recently announced the release of the latest version of CA Asset Management r11, a system designed to be at the heart of IT management. In particular, CA Asset Management r11 promises to become the “single source of IT Truth”, a matter of no little importance in these days of ever closer scrutiny of IT operations and cost analysis.

This latest version of CA’s asset management technology forms a central component of the company’s EITM (Enterprise IT Management) vision and is now built on top of a single management database. The importance of the single data repository cannot be over estimated as this will provide organisations with the opportunity to hold all relevant asset information in a single location. This in turn will allow simplified reporting and analysis to be undertaken thereby permitting more authoritative decision making to take place.

CA Asset Management has long a long history and already boasts of a sizeable user base. In addition to the single management database, the new release includes a number of new features and functions, most of which will deliver considerable value in hard pressed IT organisations. CA Asset Management r11 is an integration of three products, namely Unicenter Asset Intelligence r11 SP1, Unicenter Asset Management r11 and Unicenter Asset Portfolio Management r11.

The asset management software provides sophisticated functionality in five major operational and financial areas, Asset Inventory and Tracking, Configuration Management, Software License Management, Contract Management and, an area still receiving ever higher levels of attention, the Financial Management of IT assets.

New and enhanced functionality that deserves attention includes Continuous and Active Discovery coupled with highly developed reconciliation capabilities. Indeed, the software is capable of utilizing multiple discovery technologies to ensure that core asset information is kept up to date. Perhaps the most important enhancements are to be found in Unicenter Asset Intelligence. This tool may link the asset information with information covering the organisation’s logical structure and associated cost centres. Unicenter Asset Intelligence provides views into key enterprise performance indicators and the reporting capabilities allows managers to take ‘informed’ business decisions based on valid, current information.

The combination of comprehensive discovery technology, a unified management database and effective intelligent reporting capabilities will provide enterprises with the core knowledge that is needed to manage IT today in response to fluctuating business demands. Of even greater importance is the ability to provide organisations with a consistent, coherent picture of IT asset deployment, resource usage and associated costs that should form the basis of business—IT communications and as the repository for the development of a service management approach. Effective Asset Management can give IT a new foundation to change, for the better, its relationship with business users of vital IT services. CA Asset Management r11 has the potential to provide that foundation.