March 24, 1997 10:00 AM ET

CA bolsters Unicenter
Strengthens TNG support with added options, alliances

By Paula Musich and Juan Carlos Perez

Computer Associates International Inc. this spring will kick off a series of initiatives--including new products and third-party alliances--that the company hopes will make its Unicenter TNG enterprise management system more effective for managing enterprise applications and networks. CA will add new options for managing a host of servers and applications from Unicenter TNG. The options will include modules for Lotus Development Corp.'s Notes/Domino; PeopleSoft Corp., Baan Co. and Oracle Corp. client/server applications; and Netscape Communications Corp.'s Commerce Server and Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Information Server. CA earlier this year made public plans to deliver SAP AG and Microsoft Exchange options. To boost Unicenter TNG as a network management platform, CA will announce an alliance with Cisco Systems Inc. CA will integrate Cisco's CiscoWorks router management suite with Unicenter TNG. CA and Novell Inc. also are expected to announce this week at Novell's BrainShare conference their efforts to create links between Unicenter TNG and Novell's ManageWise. CA's new focus on managing specific applications is a good move, according to Steve Rees, director of computer services at Tektronix Inc., in Wilsonville, Ore. "I'm all for having that capability integrated with Unicenter TNG. That way we don't have to build it ourselves," said Rees, who is interested in evaluating modules to manage the company's various Netscape servers. In promoting Unicenter TNG as a network management tool, CA will have to overcome Unicenter's history as strictly a systems management suite. In that vein, CA is working to integrate CiscoWorks--the leading network management tool for managing Cisco internetworking products. The integration will happen at several levels. "You can define a Cisco router as a managed object to Unicenter TNG and define it in the repository, and you can set up a TNG policy on the Cisco routers and have that defined in the repository," said Russell Artzt, CA's executive vice president of R&D;, in Islandia, N.Y. The integration also will include the ability to automatically discover Cisco routers and display those on a Unicenter TNG map running on the TNG console. CiscoWorks can be launched from a TNG console, so that a network operating from the TNG console can monitor the health of Cisco routers, get event information and drill down to get more details on its status. Copyright(c) 1997 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company is prohibited. PC Week and the PC Week logo are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. PC Week Online and the PC Week Online logo are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Send mail to PC Week