Computer Associates streamlines data management

ISLANDIA, N.Y. - Years spent on the acquisition trail have netted Computer Associates a broad assortment of data-management technologies, which it's now beginning to integrate with a new version of its core CleverPath portal software.

With its expanded CleverPath suite announced last week, users can more easily aggregate data sources - everything from financial and customer data repositories to e-mail and text documents - and mine useful information from the pile, CA says.

The revamped suite offers support for content management, collaboration, online analytical processing and business reporting, and rules-based automation. Specifically, the new version of CleverPath Portal features a redesigned user interface, more customization and search features, and improved XML and Web programming interfaces.

Updates to the CleverPath Aion business-rules engine - which lets users build rules into the software that will trigger automated actions, such as an e-mail alert, or customized message - include using Web services to generate rules that apply to applications outside CleverPath systems.

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ISLANDIA, N.Y. - Years spent on the acquisition trail have netted Computer Associates a broad assortment of data-management technologies, which it's now beginning to integrate with a new version of its core CleverPath portal software.

With its expanded CleverPath suite announced last week, users can more easily aggregate data sources - everything from financial and customer data repositories to e-mail and text documents - and mine useful information from the pile, CA says.

The revamped suite offers support for content management, collaboration, online analytical processing and business reporting, and rules-based automation. Specifically, the new version of CleverPath Portal features a redesigned user interface, more customization and search features, and improved XML and Web programming interfaces.

Updates to the CleverPath Aion business-rules engine - which lets users build rules into the software that will trigger automated actions, such as an e-mail alert, or customized message - include using Web services to generate rules that apply to applications outside CleverPath systems.

The idea of a proactive system that automatically could adjust to variables such as the financial markets is appealing to J.P. Morgan/American Century, said Bruce Focht, Web applications and product development manager at the Kansas City, Mo., retirement plan services joint venture. Bundling the CleverPath Aion business-rules engine with the portal infrastructure could make that possible, he says.

"For example, if the stock market were to drop by a certain amount, our CleverPath system could send a message to [our] call-center managers telling them to expect an increase in phone calls from customers," Focht says.

The CleverPath bundle also offers collaboration portlets that provide end users with instant messaging, browser-content sharing, and audio and video conferencing tools. A new access-control option provides IT managers with authentication and single sign-on mechanisms to control access to applications.

CA is ahead of the curve with its bundling approach, which is just what users need, says Guy Creese, research director at Aberdeen Group. Rather than deploying point products for separate intranet, portal and content management initiatives, companies want an easier way to take stock of myriad information assets, he says.

"CA, because of its historical acquisition strategy, ends up having a lot of these [information management] technologies in-house," Creese says. For example, its business intelligence offerings, stem from product suites CA obtained when it bought Sterling Software and Platinum Technology. "CleverPath has brought it together," he says.

The ability to marry structured data from databases and unstructured data, such as text files, is key, Creese says. For example, a manager might be able to see from sales systems that revenue in a particular region is falling off and that a salesperson is not meeting quota. Correlating that structured data with e-mail messages from the salesperson explaining the lower numbers would shed more light on the issue, Creese says.