UC4 Software

UC4 Software Redefines the Application Release Automation Market with Acquisition of Ventum

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0100

BELLEVUE, WA and Vienna, Austria – February 14, 2012 – UC4, the leader in IT Process Automation, is redefining application release automation by combining planning, control and automation through the acquisition of Ventum Solutions, a software provider specializing in enterprise release management. Application release automation is a key capability for organizations struggling with DevOps, IT as a Service, Cloud and Big Data initiatives.

“UC4’s ONE Automation platform is well suited to address the growing demand for application release automation accelerated by new technologies and models such as cloud and virtualization,” said Jason Liu, CEO, UC4 Software. “With the acquisition of Ventum, UC4 now has an end-to-end solution that unifies the application release process with operational IT process automation in the datacenter. The UC4 automation engine provides a seamless way to deploy and maintain applications and their infrastructure.”

According to Gartner, over the next four years, 25 percent of large IT organizations that develop custom applications will establish release teams that span application development and production and are focused on continuous delivery. With some release processes having as many as 400 different automation tasks, an ARA tool adds reliability to the deployment process-- with less custom scripting and by documenting variations across environments to reduce configuration errors and downtime.

“We've been closely following the application release automation market since we identified it as the critical link between development and operations and a major driver for IT process automation," said Rachel Chalmers, RD Infrastructure, 451 Research. "The addition of Ventum’s release planning and coordination capabilities to UC4’s deployment engine offers an intriguing new prospect for IT and application development organizations that must combine agility with central management, security and control."

UC4 Application Release Automation is an end-to-end solution for planning, coordinating and automating software releases, including automated deployment of applications across large-scale server environments. It streamlines application release workflow management for even the largest enterprise environments while reducing deployment cost in the process.

Ventum’s enterprise release management software adds key capabilities to UC4’s solution:

Application and component modeling minimizes failures by identifying unmet dependencies
Test environment scheduling ensures required test and staging environments are available at the right time, preventing unnecessary project delays
Centralized approval process eliminates errors and provides great visibility into the release process
Resource conflict identification eliminates process resource contention

Already integrated with UC4’s Application Release Automation, Ventum’s solution enables release managers to initiate a deployment using UC4’s automation engine from within Ventum’s UI. Tighter integration is currently being developed to provide even greater efficiencies and cost savings.
To learn more about UC4’s ARA product, see the white paper: UC4 Application Release Automation

About UC4 Software
UC4 Software is the world’s largest, independent IT Process Automation software company. UC4’s ONE Automation platform delivers IT Process Automation for organizations facing increasingly dynamic applications and infrastructure, and those migrating to next generation service models for cloud, DevOps and big data. ONE Automation unifies workload, application release, application process, run-book, data transfer, and VM automation, with predictive analytics based on complex event processing technology. Unified process automation is proven to help IT Operations gain greater control and significantly improve both service delivery and cost savings.
With 25 years of experience, UC4 automates tens of millions of operations a day for over 2,000 customers worldwide. Rethink IT automation at www.UC4.com.

About Ventum
Founded in 2005, Ventum is headquartered in Austria with offices in Vienna and Hanoi, Vietnam. With international customers in telecommunications, banking and insurance, Ventum specializes in solutions for application release and deployment in heterogeneous IT environments and major system migration initiatives.

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For More Information:
Casy Jones
Finn Partners for UC4 Software
312-329-3976
casy@finnpartners.com

Basis Technologies and UC4 to Provide Customers with Integrated Solutions for Large Scale Automated Data Processing

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:59:00 +0100

London, UK—November 8, 2011—Basis Technologies International (BTI), a leader in add-on solutions that optimize SAP, has announced a strategic partnership with UC4, the world’s largest, independent IT automation software company. The partnership will deliver innovative solutions for SAP customers, including the integration of BTI’s Mass Data Runtime—a solution which delivers dramatic data processing improvements and is certified as powered by the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform —with the powerful capabilities of UC4’s ONE Automation platform. The unique combination of UC4 IT Process Automation and Mass Data Runtime significantly accelerates and orchestrates business processes, applications and infrastructure. This reduces the risk associated with poor performing background processes and tasks from impacting day to day business operations.

The partnership will focus on providing SAP customers a unique platform for automating data processing tasks, whilst drastically reducing their run times using distributed processing techniques. By blending Mass Data Runtime’s processing strengths with UC4’s sophisticated automation capabilities, customers will be able to:

Automate and accelerate a wide variety of data processing tasks, including: SAP programs and interfaces; batch runs; data migrations; file transfers; data extractions; archiving; and data warehousing activities
Cut through large data volumes to complete jobs in a fraction of time—minimizing the risk of big data sets stalling business processes and programs
Instantly distribute information to business users as soon as it becomes available—improving the accuracy and speed of decision making
Dynamically control—in real time—the use of available servers, adjusting and optimizing network and cloud usage for the demands of critical data processing tasks
Automate and seamlessly coordinate the parallel running of key business processes and programs, such as billing runs
Remove the overhead of repeatedly re-starting reporting processes and use reporting results for further automation activities

The integration of MDR and ONE Automation brings together two leading solutions:

Mass Data Runtime from Basis Technologies—uses the power of distributed processing to accelerate how standard and custom ABAP™ code processes large volumes of data. Quick to implement, it provides an easy-to-use toolkit which transforms how data is processed—supporting businesses with ‘Big Data’ challenges and fast-forwarding their SAP business processes.

UC4 ONE Automation— certified as powered by the SAP Netweaver® technology platform. Delivers enterprise-wide automation with the most comprehensive IT process automation solution available anywhere. ONE Automation combines job scheduling, managed file transfer, runbook automation, application process automation, application release automation and virtualization management together with service level management and intelligent decision making on one a single platform.

“The partnership between Basis Technologies and UC4 lets us unite two best-in-class solutions to help organizations that are overwhelmed by large data volumes speed up and better coordinate their data processing tasks,” said Phill Sly, Basis Technologies CEO. “The partnership directly aligns with Basis Technologies’ mission to deliver innovative solutions that help SAP run faster and safer. I’m looking forward to working with UC4 to combine our teams’ knowledge and discover even more ways of doing this.”

“Our partnership with BTI and the integration of ONE Automation with Mass Data Runtime is a natural and exciting extension for UC4,” said Sidd Mallannagari, UC4’s Head of Corporate Strategy. “ONE Automation is already hugely successful in achieving efficiency improvements for job scheduling and batch runs; adding the data processing power of Mass Data Runtime will now deliver extraordinary results and even greater value to our customers.”

Basis Technologies is an industry-leading software company that enables SAP customers to optimize and enhance their existing IT systems with solutions that enable faster decision-making, optimize innovative process changes, improve cash flow, and increase customer satisfaction.

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Notes for editors
About Basis Technologies International
Headquartered in London, UK, Basis Technologies is a specialist in process optimization, change and transport solutions. It delivers innovative and highly productive software solutions to some of the world’s most prestigious corporations. Basis Technologies is laser focused on developing customer-centric solutions that dramatically improve productivity, reduce risk and provide a swift return on investment. Basis Technologies is an SAP software solution and technology partner in the SAP PartnerEdge™ program.

For more information, visit http://www.basistechnologies.com.

About UC4 Software
UC4 Software is the world’s largest, independent IT Process Automation software company. UC4’s ONE Automation platform delivers IT Process Automation for organizations facing increasingly dynamic applications and infrastructure, and those migrating to next generation service models for cloud, DevOps and big data. ONE Automation unifies workload, application release, application process, run-book, data transfer, and VM automation, with predictive analytics based on complex event processing technology. Unified process automation is proven to help IT Operations gain greater control and significantly improve both service delivery and cost savings.

With 25 years of experience, UC4 automates tens of millions of operations a day for over 2,000 customers worldwide. Rethink IT automation at www.UC4.com.

For more information, please contact:
Casy Jones
Ruder Finn for UC4 Software
312-329-3976
jonesc@ruderfinn.com

UC4 Software Introduces Enhanced Application Release Automation Solution

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:02:00 +0200

UC4 speeds roll out of new business applications for better service delivery;
Application Release Automation key to DevOps and journey toward IT-as-a-Service

BELLEVUE, WA – October 19, 2011 – UC4, the world’s largest independent IT Process Automation software company, today announced its enhanced Application Release Automation (ARA) solution. UC4 Application Release Automation provides visibility into the end-to-end release processes through cross functional planning, tracking and reporting. It’s designed to fully automate the deployment of complex applications from development through production and scales to support large, diverse enterprise IT environments. “Application Release Automation bridges development, application and operations engineers – and is a key enabler to DevOps,” said Ronni Colville, VP Distinguished Analyst for Gartner, Inc. “Application Release Automation tools provide two primary benefits, which are better communications and visibility between teams, and faster time to market with new services and features. Application Release Automation tools will also add a higher degree of reliability to the application deployment process.” Application release is a complex, time-consuming process. Typically, it involves numerous manual steps, which require significant staff time, with an increased risk of errors. Complex dependencies – both between and/or across applications and operating systems – further complicate the process. The overall process can be highly disruptive to everyday operations, resulting in delayed releases, delayed revenue opportunities and missed SLAs. Application Release Automation has become a top priority for CIOs due to several trends:

Growing complexity of IT infrastructures driven by service oriented architecture and adoption of highly dynamic cloud-based environments
Business pressure to substantially increase the frequency of release cycles, especially of web and mobile applications, while maintaining or reducing IT budgets
Need for standardization and control over release processes to ensure compliance with industry regulations.

The enhanced UC4 solution offers new features to help IT organizations address these challenges, including:

Release planning – bundling of application components, application packaging and project resource scheduling across teams and environments
Centralized configuration and control – environment configuration and control as well as an ability to roll out environment modifications from development through production
Build, configuration and change management tools integrations via new agents and adapters – third party integrations for leading industry tools

UC4’s Application Release Automation combines the only ARA solution to address application release planning challenges natively within the solution with the most advanced centralized environmental configuration and control abilities. TASC, an early adopter of the new solution, is recognized as one of the top 5 benefits administration services providers nationwide. TASC has growing base of over 60,000 clients and 600,000 online users. “Our strategy is to differentiate through our product capabilities and quality of services provided, and our online platform is at the core of that strategy,” said Karl Richards, CIO of TASC. “It’s critical that we roll out continuous innovation with new products and features for our customers. With UC4’s ARA solution, we’re able to drive that innovation in hours and days instead of weeks and months – without adding additional IT staff capacity. This would not be possible without UC4.” UC4’s ARA solution is one of several enterprise automation solutions that comprise its ONE Automation platform. ONE Automation means that companies only need to buy one integrated product to automate multiple areas of data center processes that traditionally require intensive manual operations. According to Richards, “ARA is a strategic initiative for our company, and we are also using UC4 to automate other areas of the data center, saving a tremendous amount of time and money. UC4 supports many off-the-shelf systems and is able to break down the silos of our diverse IT environment, establish a single pane of glass and accomplish all automation requirements with one tool.” “DevOps has become mission critical and our solution extends the benefits of IT Process Automation to the market, bridges the gaps within the organization and brings into focus new opportunities for data center efficiency,” said Randy Clark, CMO of UC4. To learn more about UC4’s ARA product, see the white paper: UC4 Application Release Automation

About UC4 Software
UC4 Software is the world’s largest, independent IT Process Automation software company. UC4’s
ONE Automation platform delivers IT Process Automation for organizations facing increasingly dynamic applications and infrastructure, and those migrating to next generation service models for cloud, DevOps and big data. ONE Automation unifies workload, application release, application process, run-book, data transfer, and VM automation, with predictive analytics based on complex event processing technology. Unified process automation is proven to help IT Operations gain greater control and significantly improve both service delivery and cost savings. With 25 years of experience, UC4 automates tens of millions of operations a day for over 2,000 customers worldwide. Rethink IT automation at www.UC4.com. # # # For More Information:
Casy Jones
Ruder Finn for UC4 Software
312-329-3976
jonesc@ruderfinn.com

UC4 Software Continues Strong Growth Through Customer Acquisition and Global Expansion

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 16:40:00 +0200

Company Recognized As Most Complete Provider in IT Process Automation
Market by Leading Industry Analyst Firm BELLEVUE, WA – October 6, 2011 – UC4, the world’s largest, independent IT Process Automation software company, today announced that it won more than 100 new accounts during fiscal year 2011, as compared to 90 new accounts in fiscal year 2010. Strong license revenue growth continued, with the company delivering 20 percent quarter-over-quarter growth in the fourth quarter alone. The company also announced the opening of two new offices in Poland and Singapore with other office openings soon to follow. UC4’s ONE Automation platform and supporting automation engine was adopted by enterprises across industry verticals worldwide, including Israeli-based Harel Insurance Company, German-based CreditPlus Bank and leading pharmaceutical distributor Andreae Noris Zahn AG, as well as Bay Federal Credit Union in the United States. “IT process automation is growing in strategic importance as IT organizations seek to reduce data center budgets, while delivering more to the business, all in the face of increasingly dynamic applications and IT infrastructure,” said Jason Liu, CEO, UC4 Software. “UC4 is clearly differentiated through our platform’s ability to address all six areas of data center automation with one, fully integrated offering that is constantly being innovated. This is proving highly compelling to our customers, helping to fuel UC4’s growth.” The company’s leadership in the IT Process Automation market was supported in a recent Forrester Research, Inc. report entitled “Market Overview: IT Process Automation, Q3 2011” (July 2011). The report stated that, “UC4 ONE Automation embodies the trend toward IT process automation convergence to cover the full spectrum of today’s automation needs more than any other vendor’s solution.” Forrester compared UC4’s offering to 10 competitors in the IT Process Automation market, including the big four systems management vendors, across 10 capability areas. UC4 was the only vendor with all 10 areas “fully available” today. About UC4 Software
UC4 Software is the world’s largest, independent IT Process Automation software company. UC4’s ONE Automation platform delivers IT Process Automation for organizations facing increasingly dynamic applications and infrastructure, and those migrating to next generation service models for DevOps, cloud, and big data. ONE Automation unifies workload, application release, application process, run-book, data transfer, and VM automation, with predictive analytics based on complex event processing technology. Unified process automation is proven to help IT Operations gain greater control and significantly improve both service delivery and cost savings. With 25 years of experience, UC4 automates tens of millions of operations a day for over 2,000 customers worldwide. Rethink IT automation at www.UC4.com.

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For More Information:
Casy Jones
Ruder Finn for UC4 Software
312-329-3976
jonesc@ruderfinn.com

Leading Independent Research Firm Points to UC4 Software as Most Complete Provider in IT Process Automation Market

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0200

As Corporate IT Moves to more standardized Service Provider Models, IT Process Automation Seen as Critical
BELLEVUE, WA – September 14, 2011 – UC4, the world’s largest, independent IT Process Automation software company, today announced its inclusion in a recent Forrester Research, Inc. report as the most complete provider in the IT Process Automation market. The Forrester report entitled “Market Overview: IT Process Automation, Q3 2011” (July 2011) states that, “UC4 ONE Automation embodies the trend toward IT process automation convergence to cover the full spectrum of today’s automation needs more than any other vendor’s solution. ONE Automation provides a platform that combines workload and run book automation with system management integration and complex event processing under one umbrella.” Forrester compared UC4’s offering to 10 competitors in the IT Process Automation market, across 10 capability areas, including:

workload automation
run book automation
low-level process automation
high-level process automation
integration into a single automation framework or solution
ability to combine automation solutions in a single process
automation self-service
ability to use SLA or history to trigger automation processes
integration with IT management solutions
use of complex event processing as an automation trigger

As a testament to its focus and consistent, unrivaled innovation, UC4 was the only vendor with all 10 areas “fully available” today. Relevant to complex event processing technology, the report states that, “UC4 has demonstrated CEP-based triggering that is superior to all others.” With a single platform, customers can automate the six primary areas of data center activity: job scheduling, application process automation, run book, virtualization management, application release automation and managed file transfer. The report offers some perspective in this regard. “Realize that the tools you use to automate your IT processes today will extend to automating your business processes tomorrow. To make strategic decisions, not just tactical ones, I&O [Infrastructure & Operations] professionals must select vendors that address today’s needs while satisfying an architectural vision for the future.” With regard to new data center technologies, the Forrester report also states that, “cloud and virtualization are now accelerating the demand for automation,” and, in fact, that “IT process automation is the cornerstone to enabling these new technologies and models.” The “Market Overview: IT Process Automation, Q3 2011” report goes on to state that, “By masking IT’s diversity and automating highly repetitive tasks, IT Process Automation is the key to industrializing your operations to improve productivity and reduce costs.” This is fundamental in supporting service providers and enterprise IT as they move to lightweight, multi-purpose platforms that can handle increasingly dynamic applications and IT infrastructure. Eric Gauthier, IT Systems Administrator for BECU (formerly known as Boeing Employees’ Credit Union), agrees that UC4’s approach is powerful. “The UC4 Automation Platform will greatly simplify our automation road map through its ability to accomplish all areas of IT automation with one tool,” said Gauthier. “Process automation is at the heart of today’s cloud, data analytics, devops and IT service delivery challenges. As task automation gives way to process automation, IT organizations are looking for best-of-breed platforms that can consolidate silos of automation. UC4’s 25 year history and leadership in process automation give customers a real alternative to the Big4 system management vendors.” said Randy Clark, CMO of UC4. For a copy of the full report, please visit: Forrester Market Overview: IT Process Automation, Q3 2011. About UC4 Software
UC4 Software delivers the industry’s only unified automation solution. We help customers achieve ONE Automation, a single enterprise-wide approach that intelligently integrates the automation of business processes, applications and IT infrastructure onto one platform. UC4 makes it easier for enterprises to rapidly and reliably deliver IT services

UC4 is the world’s largest independent automation software company. More than 2,000 organizations worldwide trust UC4 to automate their business. Rethink automation at http://www.uc4.com.

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UC4 Announces Collaboration with Red Hat To Enhance Automated Open Source Solutions for Virtual and Cloud Infrastructure

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:24:00 +0200

Intelligent IT Process Automation Solution Provided Via Open Source BELLEVUE, WA – August 30, 2011 – UC4, the world’s largest, independent IT automation software company, today announced a collaboration with Red Hat to provide enhanced, enterprise-ready, open virtualization and cloud solutions with predictive automated provisioning capabilities. Key benefits enabled by the technologies will be lower costs and lower manual effort required to initiate and orchestrate virtualized infrastructure, as well as the ability for IT departments to do ‘more with less’ and achieve more aggressive service level agreements. The recent creation of the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA) and UC4’s membership in the Alliance, has spurred collaborative efforts to enhance growing virtualization and cloud infrastructures and provide an automated, open virtualization option for enterprises. UC4 will collaborate with Red Hat to offer enterprises its multitenant, scalable, enterprise automation technology along with Red Hat’s open source solutions providing the flexibility to dynamically manage virtual resource requirements and private and public cloud infrastructures with built-in automated provisioning for customers. Additionally, UC4’s application awareness and business process automation capabilities will enable creation of virtual infrastructures that support applications and business processes much more efficiently. As businesses move to more dynamic virtualized and cloud infrastructures, the ability to fully automate all IT processes within one solution becomes invaluable and provides the confidence necessary to make the transition. Open virtualization solutions are the key to widespread adoption of the cloud as companies look for ways to cut IT spend while bringing additional applications to business users through greater efficiency. “Our collaboration with UC4 is designed to advance various open virtualization and cloud solutions and help them grow in usage,” said Sarangan Rangachari, senior director, Cloud Business Unit at Red Hat. “As virtualization and cloud infrastructures continue to mature, enterprises will look to open solutions as a way to enhance their capabilities in a cost-effective manner.” “Collaborating with Red Hat, an industry leader in open source virtualization and cloud solutions, allows us to work closely on our advanced enterprise automation technology to help open virtualization and cloud-based solutions take hold,” said Siddharth Mallannagari, SVP Strategy and Corporate Development, Alliances at UC4. “Open solutions are an important part of offering customers cost-effective choices for meeting their virtualization and cloud needs while avoiding vendor lock-in with proprietary solutions. This collaboration strengthens UC4’s overall virtualization management offering as we continue our strategy of support for heterogeneous IT environments.” About UC4 Software
UC4 Software delivers the industry’s only unified automation solution. We help customers achieve ONE Automation, a single enterprise-wide approach that intelligently integrates the automation of business processes, applications and IT infrastructure onto one platform. UC4 makes it easier for enterprises to rapidly and reliably deliver IT services. UC4 is the world’s largest independent automation software company. More than 2,000 organizations worldwide trust UC4 to automate their business. Rethink automation at http://www.uc4.com.

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For More Information:
Casy Jones
Ruder Finn for UC4 Software
312-329-3976
jonesc@ruderfinn.com

WM Morrisons Supermarkets Selects UC4 Automation Engine for Oracle Retail

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0200

READING, UK, June 28 2011 – UC4 Software, the world’s largest, independent IT automation software company, today announces that Morrisons, the UK’s fourth largest supermarket chain, has implemented its flagship UC4 Automation Engine, allowing Morrisons to streamline its IT operations and accelerate the company’s implementation of Oracle Retail.

Morrisons deployed Oracle Retail to support its trading operations and is using the UC4 Automation Engine to optimise Oracle Retail workload and increase efficiencies and information-sharing between different departments and the back-end processing. UC4 offers pre-defined Oracle Retail templates which reduce the need for configuration, as well as scalability and flexibility as the new IT infrastructure is rolled out across the business.

“As we are in a very competitive market we need a robust IT system we can rely on and can adapt to changing conditions. We selected the UC4 Automation Engine as it offers a solution that can easily be integrated with existing systems such as Oracle Retail and requires minimal maintenance,” said Tony Stephenson, IT Operations Manager, Morrisons. “We were aware of the relationship between Oracle Retail customers and UC4 and the benefits of working with a proven technology partner. We have now extended the automation to Oracle E-Business Suite for our back-end processing, which has helped us to integrate all the Oracle applications together.”

UC4 offers out-of-the-box process templates that can be rapidly configured to fit individual business requirements. Centralised management and control of workload simplifies operations and, by removing manual intervention and reducing latency, organisations benefit from enhanced performance and accuracy. It also offers automated event processing responses which can proactively take action around any event and adapt to the status of all systems and interdependencies. The UC4 Automation Engine offers six types of automation for enterprises, with Morrisons using application process automation.

“We fully support Morrisons in its drive to enhance its IT operations and ensuring the easy migration to our IT platform,” said Craig Beddis, Regional SVP at UC4 Software. “In the short term, we can offer a quick deployment of Oracle Retail. In the longer term we can help take away all the challenges of managing and monitoring workload, so that Morrisons can get more flexibility and agility from all of its IT systems. Through our partnership we will support Morrisons on how best to integrate automation tools across the company that are scalable to reflect future business plans.”

About UC4 Software
UC4 Software delivers the industry’s only unified automation solution. We help customers achieve ONE Automation, a single enterprise-wide approach that intelligently integrates the automation of business processes, applications and IT infrastructure onto one platform. UC4 makes it easier for enterprises to rapidly and reliably deliver IT services.

UC4 is the world’s largest independent automation software company. More than 2,000 organizations worldwide trust UC4 to automate their business. Rethink automation at http://www.uc4.com.

For more information:
Laura Strong
UC4 Software
+44 (0)207 462 8921
lstrong@ruderfinn.co.uk

IT teams are stalling when it comes to implementing their cloud strategy, according to UC4 survey

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0200

Administration more of a burden on IT department than ever, with 61% claiming it stifles motivation and creativity READING, UK – June 21, 2011 – Widespread adoption of cloud computing could be under threat because organisations simply don’t have the resource to get it off the ground, according to research by UC4, the world’s largest, independent IT automation software company. High maintenance costs and the increasing percentage of time that goes into administration around existing systems were cited as the biggest challenges to overcome, in the survey of IT decision-makers across a range of UK organisations carried out by Vanson Bourne. Nearly two thirds of respondents stated that the volume of admin tasks was significantly reducing their effectiveness and 60% said it was reducing their capacity to work on new initiatives. The figures showed that compared to a year ago, the number of IT decision-makers concerned about the impact of IT administration on a department’s ability to support the business effectively, has risen by 10%. “It is clear from the results that IT staff are not reaping the benefits from moving to the cloud,” said Craig Beddis, Regional SVP at UC4 Software. “The IT department is under pressure to show it is being as efficient as possible and ‘driving innovation,’ yet it is faced with a bigger admin burden than ever. This in turn is making teams less efficient by focusing too much of their time on mundane admin jobs that are not bringing value to the business.” Beddis continues: “As cloud services offer so much potential for businesses to be more flexible and dynamic, IT staff are becoming frustrated having to deal with an abundance of siloed systems, which is stifling their creativity and effectiveness. This could stall the adoption of more cloud services in the future if the IT department views it as too much of a headache.” Just under half (47%) of those surveyed found it difficult integrating disparate systems and getting the information they need and over one third (38%) see automation and orchestration as a relevant part of their cloud strategy, with the financial services sector finding it most relevant (44%), followed by manufacturing (40%) and lastly retail, distribution and transport (32%). Respondents were also asked what they think are the key benefits of IT automation for their business, with the most popular answers believing it can bring increased efficiency (38%), followed by those thinking it reduced time spent on administrative tasks (27%). “In terms of trying to solve the issues of administration and managing hybrid environments this is where there seems to be a lack of understanding,” says Beddis. “More than half of respondents (54%) see the importance of automation in managing hybrid environments, yet one third (33%) admit to having a lack of expertise in understanding the benefits of IT automation.” For other survey results please see the Appendix.

About the survey
Vanson Bourne, an independent specialist technology market research company, surveyed 100 IT decision-makers from organisations across the United Kingdom that employ more than 500 people.

About UC4 Software
UC4 Software delivers the industry’s only unified automation solution. We help customers achieve ONE Automation, a single enterprise-wide approach that intelligently integrates the automation of business processes, applications and IT infrastructure onto one platform. UC4 makes it easier for enterprises to rapidly and reliably deliver IT services.

UC4 is the world’s largest independent automation software company. More than 2,000 organizations worldwide trust UC4 to automate their business. Rethink automation at http://www.uc4.com.

Appendix
Also in the research:

44% spend more time running different proprietary software across siloed systems when integrating legacy systems and other newer hybrid environments
61% think excessive administration tasks stifle initiatives and/or creativity, compared to 50% asked the same question in the same survey in 2009
Time taken undertaking administrative tasks has increased from an average of 16% of the respondent’s time in 2009 to 19% in this year’s survey
63% of respondents feel that their IT department spends too much time on maintenance

# # #

For More Information:
Laura Strong
Ruder Finn for UC4 Software
020 7462 8921
lstrong@ruderfinn.co.uk

UC4 Software Announces Randy Clark as New Chief Marketing Officer

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0200

BELLEVUE, WA – June 14, 2011 – UC4, the world’s largest, independent IT automation software company, today announced the appointment of Randy Clark as chief marketing officer. Clark brings more than 15 years of growth leadership experience as well as deep, specific expertise in systems management and cloud computing. As CMO, he will lead UC4’s products, programs and communications in support of the company’s ONE Automation strategy and its position as a key enabler to successful virtualization and cloud computing initiatives.

“Coming off a year of solid growth, we are pleased to announce that Randy will be joining our team and given his proven track record of quality leadership and strong growth, we are confident he will help UC4 continue on its aggressive track,” said Jason Liu, CEO of UC4 Software. “I’m confident that his deep familiarity with our target market and experience in innovating and executing go-to-market strategies will greatly strengthen our business.”

“For more than 20 years, UC4 has quietly become the leader in IT automation software,” said Clark. “The company’s strategy and vision for the industry, along with its core focus on innovation, is impressive and clearly differentiates UC4 from the big four systems management vendors. I look forward to helping raise UC4’s profile as automation moves to center stage in the modern data center.”

Clark brings extensive experience in transforming business-to-business software companies to address growth markets through new products and go-to-market models. He was most recently with Platform Computing where he served as CMO, instituting business and marketing strategies that enabled the company to transition from the niche high-performance computing market into growing enterprise analytics and cloud computing markets. His systems management experience with Bay Networks and Platform Computing compliments and underpins his deep vertical industry applications background.

Previously, Clark was senior vice president of marketing for Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC), where he helped create the PLM category and position PTC as category leader. Clark also served as vice president of marketing for multiple public and venture-backed companies, including Symyx, Clearforest and Enigma where he successfully led transformative growth. He holds a B.A. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a MBA from the Harvard Business School.

About UC4 Software
UC4 Software delivers the industry’s only unified automation solution. We help customers achieve ONE Automation, a single enterprise-wide approach that intelligently integrates the automation of business processes, applications and IT infrastructure onto one platform. UC4 makes it easier for enterprises to rapidly and reliably deliver IT services.

UC4 is the world’s largest independent automation software company. More than 2,000 organizations worldwide trust UC4 to automate their business. Rethink automation at http://www.uc4.com. # # #

For More Information:
Joseph Tateoka
Ruder Finn for UC4 Software
312-329-3971
tateokaj@ruderfinn.com

UC4 Software Introduces Next Generation Service Level Management

Tue, 24 May 2011 00:00:00 +0200

BELLEVUE, WA – May 24, 2011 – UC4, the world’s largest, independent IT automation software company, today announced UC4 Service Level Governor, a proactive management, monitoring and reporting tool enabling the delivery of service level commitments on time, every time, automatically. UC4 Service Level Governor takes ONE Automation, the enterprise-wide approach that intelligently integrates the automation of business processes, applications and IT infrastructure onto one platform, to the next step by automating decisions and enabling seamless operation of dynamic cloud and virtual architectures.

Current Service Level management offerings are built for static, physical IT architectures. They are simple, backward-looking tools that report on Service Level Agreement (SLA) performance after SLAs have been breached. UC4 Service Level Governor is built for today’s dynamic virtual and cloud-based architectures aligning business with IT by tracking multiple tasks, intelligently synthesizing, evaluating and applying policies and rules to identify event patterns that could impact service delivery and automatically orchestrates immediate remedial action to resolve issues, before they become critical, ensuring all SLAs are prioritized and met.

UC4 Service Level Governor is designed to:

Improve quality of service by orchestrating across three layers (business, process and application infrastructure) instead of one
Proactively manage SLAs in real-time
Provide real-time visibility into SLA management
Lower operating costs by meeting quality requirements and delivering promised services on time, reducing business performance degradation and penalties incurred by missed SLAs
Improve infrastructure utilization and workload throughput by marrying process requirements with dynamic infrastructure in real-time

“UC4 Service Level Governor takes us one step closer to completing our ONE Automation vision by providing tools to automate both tasks and decisions throughout the complex event process,” said Jason Liu, CEO of UC4. “Our approach makes current, backward-looking monitoring tools obsolete as we provide an intelligent forward looking service level management solution. Welcome to a new age; yesterday, you knew what you missed, with UC4, you know what you deliver.”

UC4 Service Level Governor solution overview:

Easy to use SLA management user interface
- Define SLA Rules for Process Flows and Events
- Manage SLA’s based on delivery time and costs
- Alert early and react predictively and automatically to avoid delays and costs
Real-time Dashboard for SLA Monitoring
- Full visibility of SLA-critical jobs in real time
- Full visibility of current and predicted SLA costs
- Predictive forecasting for completion time and associated SLA costs
- Role-based real-time view of SLAs
SLA Reporting and Advanced Analytics
- Detailed analysis of dependencies
- Costs for breached SLAs and/or costs to fix the problem
- Seek patterns to prevent future SLA breaches

To learn more about UC4’s new offering and vision, click on the following links: UC4 Service Level Governor and ONE Automation

About UC4 Software
UC4 Software delivers the industry’s only unified automation solution. We help customers achieve ONE Automation, a single enterprise-wide approach that intelligently integrates the automation of business processes, applications and IT infrastructure onto one platform. UC4 makes it easier for enterprises to rapidly and reliably deliver IT services.

UC4 is the world’s largest independent automation software company. More than 2,000 organizations worldwide trust UC4 to automate their business. Rethink automation at http://www.uc4.com.

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For More Information:
Casy Jones
Ruder Finn for UC4 Software
312-329-3976
jonesc@ruderfinn.com