HONG KONG -- Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) today announced the local launch of Unicenter's new vision -- "Managing On-demand Computing" in Hong Kong with support of the new and enhanced Unicenter management solutions designed to manage complex and heterogeneous infrastructure. CA's strategy for managing on-demand computing is built on four key principles: * Empowering customers to deliver IT as a service driven directly by business requirements; * Providing the self-management/self-healing capabilities necessary to ensure that the IT infrastructure can function as a highly reliable utility; * Creating a service-oriented architecture that radically simplifies operations for IT staff; and * Offering customers a flexible licensing model (CA FlexSelect Licensing) At the Networld+Interop Conference in Las Vegas, CA Chairman and CEO Sanjay Kumar said, "We believe that the benefits of on-demand computing can be achieved largely through IT management -- not extensive overhauls of IT structures." The fundamental goals of on-demand computing are to dynamically align IT capacity with changing business priorities while increasing the efficiency with which IT resources are used. "To realize the full potential of on-demand computing, we must move beyond proprietary systems that lock customers into the network of a single vendor," Kumar said. "CA's vision of management of on-demand computing ensures that business can rise above the IT fray and access computing as easily as flipping a switch. The question is how to make on-demand computing a reality. At Computer Associates, we believe the key is management." Until now, on-demand computing initiatives have been limited by inadequate management capabilities. True on-demand computing -- where IT capacity is dynamically delivered as a utility -- can only be achieved when, in addition to applying functionality such as the dynamic allocation of resources and automatic software provisioning, the health and performance of IT infrastructure are also taken into account. "Ultimately, it is the needs of the business -- not the constraints of how IT organizations conventionally manage infrastructure -- that should drive enterprise computing," said Wai Wong, CA's senior vice president and general manager of Unicenter solutions. "By transforming Unicenter technology to provide the industry's first management platform for on-demand computing, CA is ensuring that our customers can achieve a new level of IT efficiency and alignment." Managing on-demand computing is an important step in the evolution of Unicenter, which has long helped customers maximize the value they receive from their existing infrastructure by managing it better. The new and enhanced Unicenter Management Solutions include: Unicenter Software Delivery 4.0 delivers built-in self-healing and provisioning capabilities for applications and operating systems that provide automated provisioning and reallocation of resources to accommodate changes in business demand. It also manages software interdependencies to ensure that on-demand infrastructure functions properly. Unicenter Asset Management 4.0 provides intelligent, multi-dimensional software and hardware asset management capabilities that present an accurate representation of enterprise-wide resources. Unicenter ServicePlus Service Desk 6.0 enables devices and applications to proactively and automatically interact with the help desk -- thereby embedding self-management into the on-demand computing infrastructure. It keeps support personnel informed of issues on which they need to take immediate action. Unicenter Network and Systems Management (Unicenter NSM) 3.1 enables IT organizations to view IT infrastructure based on the services it supports, and to keep those views current in a dynamically changing environment. This is critical for on-demand computing, since resources are continually re-allocated to services based on demand. Through data integration services, Unicenter NSM rapidly accesses and aggregates management information across Unicenter solutions and third-party management information sources. Unicenter Management for webMethods 3.0, which manages the performance and availability of webMethods, works in concert with Unicenter NSM to dynamically associate applications and individual infrastructure components with the business processes they support in an on-demand computing environment. A new Unicenter NSM Dynamic Reconfiguration Option works with Unicenter NSM to monitor business service levels, anticipate when more capacity is needed to improve performance, and triggers the immediate allocation of more capacity. CA is uniquely qualified to deliver on this vision because of its long history providing IT infrastructure management solutions that ensure alignment with business processes, and its track record in supporting the full range of heterogeneous resources found in today's complex, multi-vendor enterprise environments. "Unicenter provides an integrated, cost-saving solution that covers all platforms. By reducing the effort required to integrate components of the management system, Unicenter helps to enhance our ongoing systems availability and is delivering value to the organization," said Steve Beason, Executive Director of Information Technology, Hong Kong Jockey Club. Combined, the benefits of CA's approach will drive the automation of management processes, optimize the usage of IT resources, simplify operations, and automatically route work to systems best able to handle the load based on service levels defined for the business processes. "Unicenter provides a comprehensive solution for managing a heterogeneous and constantly changing infrastructure like that of MTR Corporation. It performs sophisticated event management and correlation across the entire network to proactively alert IT personnel to potential trouble spots while optimizing overall performance and ensuring availability of mission-critical systems," said Daniel Lai, Head of Information Technology, MTR Corporation Limited. The first three of the above new solutions for managing on-demand computing are available now; the rest of them are in beta test and will be available within 60 days. These modular solutions will be complemented by a variety of Unicenter, BrightStor and eTrust offerings to be announced in the near future.