CA Accelerates Innovation to Simplify Mainframe Management with Next Wave of Mainframe 2.0 Deliverables

ISLANDIA, N.Y., May 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CA, Inc. (Nasdaq: CA) today announced the next set of major deliverables under its industry-leading Mainframe 2.0 strategy.  The new releases are focused on unleashing the full potential of the mainframe platform and sustaining critical mainframe skills by dramatically simplifying management and maximizing operator productivity.  

CA is rolling out a new version of CA Mainframe Software Manager (CA MSM), a key component of the Mainframe 2.0 strategy that is available to all customers with active maintenance at no cost -- including a new automated deployment service.  CA is also releasing multiple product portfolio updates, additional health checks, and a new level of CA's mainframe software stack, which are lab tested and certified by CA to take advantage of the latest CA and IBM® z/OS® technologies.

"Despite increasing workloads, IT decision-makers need to squeeze more value from their mainframes and address head-on the looming mainframe skills shortage that our global customers are facing," said Dayton Semerjian, corporate senior vice president and general manager for CA's Mainframe Business Unit.  "With the latest deliveries on Mainframe 2.0, we are demonstrating our continued commitment to innovation that helps them achieve these goals by simplifying management for both novice and veteran mainframe users."

As noted in a 2009 IDC White Paper sponsored by CA, "The mainframe continues to be a vital engine for commerce, especially for very large enterprises. The future of the mainframe platform depends on ongoing support from a key group of system vendors and independent software vendors. CA plays a major role here as a leading broad-based mainframe management software vendor. The overall benefit of CA's Mainframe 2.0 program is to increase the value of the mainframe platform to the business by simplifying the way the mainframe is managed and thus helping the next generation of mainframe professionals continue to manage the platform effectively."*

New Mainframe 2.0 Deliveries

The new set of capabilities delivered today build on the foundation CA established to address key challenges that restrict organizations from maximizing the value of their mainframe platform.  The broad set of deliverables CA is announcing today to extend Mainframe 2.0 capabilities include:

• New release of CA Mainframe Software Manager that dramatically simplifies how novice and expert mainframe staff install and maintain CA products, helping to boost productivity by adding deployment services and enhancements to software acquisition and installation services.  CA Mainframe Software Manager continues to be available at no extra charge to customers on active maintenance for CA z/OS products.  For a list of CA products currently supported by CA MSM, please visit http://bit.ly/cf1o9U.
• Delivery of CA's mainframe software stack featuring support for CA Mainframe Software Manager, serviceability enhancements, and leveraging enhanced CA lab testing to help customers improve operational efficiency and maximize value from their CA software; CA tests are focused on verifying its mainframe software takes advantage of the latest releases of CA technologies and the IBM z/OS stack; the CA Mainframe Stack boosts the number of supporting products from 45 to over 120 products.
• Multiple product updates across CA mainframe product lines that are consistent with the Mainframe 2.0 goal of enhancing business value while simplifying management.  For a list of products across 16 major product areas, please visit http://bit.ly/9UTDXN.
• Additional Health Checks that help maximize the availability of CA mainframe software for users by leveraging IBM's Health Checker capabilities to monitor the customer's environment on an ongoing basis and confirm that CA solutions are optimally configured.

Customer Quotes

"CA's Mainframe 2.0 initiative is helping automate operations that were previously performed by IT workers, helping us improve productivity and efficiency, and freeing-up IT staff to work on other projects," said Jim Dalton, of group IT technical services for Irish Life and Permanent, a provider of retail banking, insurance, and investment services in Ireland.  "This helps us improve service to over 1 million customers."

"Before CA Mainframe 2.0, tape and activity management was all manual update activity, and could take us 3/4 of a day to perform," continued Dalton. "Now I press a button and go home -- it's all done when I arrive the next day."

"Our customers depend on CA IDMS for some of the industry's largest data and transaction environments, and leverage our service to drive their relational data warehouse, data mart and query initiatives," said John Abell, president of International Software Products. "CA MSM helps address security risks, facilitates access to IDMS, and can more easily and quickly keep all our CA software up-to-date, ultimately contributing to a more cost-effective solution for our customers' data management and business intelligence needs."

For more information on CA Mainframe 2.0 products, please visit http://bit.ly/bjeZOT.

To further help customers leverage their Mainframe assets, CA is running its second annual May Mainframe Madness event -- a free virtual conference that runs for the entire month of May, offering customers a tremendous amount of valuable information about Mainframe 2.0 and CA's mainframe solutions.

*IDC White Paper Sponsored by CA, Mainframe 2.0 Initiative Supports Consolidated Management Software Strategy, #219772, Sept 2009

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About CA

CA (Nasdaq: CA), the world's leading independent IT management software company, helps customers optimize IT for better business results. CA's Enterprise IT Management solutions for mainframe and distributed computing enable Lean IT -- empowering organizations to more effectively govern, manage and secure their IT operations. For more information, visit www.ca.com.

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SOURCE CA