CA Spectrum’s New "Change Awareness" Enables Customers To Factor Human Error Into Root-Cause Analysis

CA (NYSE: CA) today announced CA SPECTRUM Network Fault Manager r8.1, the newest version of the industry’s leading network fault management solution.

CA SPECTRUM r8.1 is the first solution to integrate network configuration “change awareness” with sophisticated root-cause analysis capabilities. This innovative new functionality enables IT organizations to uncover both human error and classic technical issues in a single, streamlined troubleshooting process—significantly improving service levels and mean-time-to repair.

Human error is one of the most common causes of network failures. Other fault management products, however, cannot automatically correlate these errors with network events. This can make it difficult for network management teams to quickly discover and resolve human errors that lead to service disruptions. CA SPECTRUM r8.1 addresses this need by integrating configuration intelligence into its patented root cause analysis.

“A substantial percentage of network problems—especially many of the most egregious ones-turn out to be self-inflicted,” said Rich Ptak, partner and co-founder, Ptak Noel and Associates. “By enabling IT organizations to rapidly pinpoint these errors, the newest release of CA SPECTRUM provides a valuable tool to preserve network service levels for the business.”

CA SPECTRUM r8.1 demonstrates CA’s commitment to investing in acquired technologies and integrating them into its comprehensive portfolio of Enterprise IT Management solutions. The new release introduces integration with CA’s application management software, Wily Introscope, to enable network managers to correlate complex application performance problems with the underlying network infrastructure on which these applications depend. It also introduces integration with CA eHealth for Voice, to provide deeper insight into network performance across converged networks.

In addition to the new integrations, CA SPECTRUM r8.1 delivers enhanced integration with eHealth, CA’s network performance management software—enabling customers to more proactively prevent potential service performance problems by correlating the trend analysis of eHealth with CA SPECTRUM’s impact analysis engine. Lastly, the new release expands integration with Unicenter Network and Systems Management, CA’s flagship service availability and systems management software, to provide customers with a unified view into the performance and availability of their enterprise network and systems management infrastructure.

CA SPECTRUM is a core component of the CA Network and Voice Management solution, which provides integrated fault and performance management for multi-vendor, heterogeneous data, IP telephony and legacy voice networks. According to an IDC White Paper, sponsored by CA, and based on interviews with end users, CA Network Management solutions delivered an average return-on-investment (ROI) of 493 percent over three years and paid back initial costs in just over eight months.*

CA SPECTRUM ensures the availability of critical network services by providing automated fault management across diverse, multi-technology networks. The new release can automatically discover and incorporate into its network topology map more than 800 different network device types. Using advanced discovery, root-cause analysis, and impact analysis, CA SPECTRUM pinpoints network problems down to the individual port or circuit, supports appropriate prioritization of technical issues, and automatically recommends remedial actions. Its intuitive reporting also delivers at-a-glance, actionable information on IT assets, network availability, events and alarm conditions, and performance metrics.

The University of Southern California (USC) uses CA SPECTRUM to ensure its ability to meet the needs of more than 46,000 students, faculty, and staff as it manages a complex network that includes 50,000 nodes on 1,200 switches across 250 different buildings.

“With CA SPECTRUM, we can proactively predict problems before they occur and clearly identify the core problem if there is a service disruption, often resolving the issue before the end users know there was a problem” said James Wiedel, director of networking at USC. “It also helps us keep costs under control by reducing the number of ’truck rolls’ we have to make.”

CA also has simplified pricing for CA SPECTRUM by offering three modular product suites—foundation, standard, and premium—enabling customers to invest in the software based on their specific needs, while providing a path for future growth.

“Networks are becoming increasingly complex as businesses are becoming increasingly dependent on networked services,” said Dan Holmes, director of product management, CA. “CA SPECTRUM’s innovative fault management capabilities are indispensable for organizations seeking to achieve competitive advantage by optimizing the availability and performance of their network infrastructure.”

* IDC White Paper sponsored by CA, “Achieving Business Value and Gaining ROI with CA’s EITM Software,” Document #205383, January 2007