Computer Associates' Unicenter TNG Furnishes Rooms To Go With Centralized Control of Diverse Enterprise Resources.

ISLANDIA, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 19, 1998--

- Major Furniture Retailer Deploys CA's Robust Enterprise Management Solution For Enhanced Security, Help Desk, And Asset Management Capabilities

Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) today announced that Rooms To Go, one of the four largest home furniture retailers in the U.S., has deployed CA's Unicenter TNG as part of a comprehensive program to manage and secure its expanding client/server computing environment.

"Our ability to expand our business processing environment while keeping IT staff numbers stable demanded that we adopt an end-to-end enterprise management strategy," said Steve Buckley, vice president of operations at Rooms To Go. "We believe Unicenter TNG represents the best approach to proactively managing the enterprise, alleviating the huge burden of point solutions and reducing the number of platform-specific skill sets we have to maintain."

With annual revenues of $600 million, Rooms To Go is one of America's fastest growing furniture chains, with revenues expected to top $ 1 billion within the next five years. To sustain its tremendous growth, the company has developed an advanced open-architectured IT network that supports more than 1,400 end-users around the world.

Rooms To Go's technology environment incorporates seven IBM RS/6000 servers - two of which are used for finance, customer service and imaging applications at company headquarters in Tampa, Fla. The remaining RS/6000s are dedicated to distribution facilities in various states, as well as manufacturing plants in Florida, Mississippi, Atlanta, and Mexico. The company also operates a Digital Alpha 533 and two Windows NT servers supporting more than 350 desktops.

The network is maintained by a lean eight-person technology staff. Executive management sought to effectively leverage existing IT personnel by employing technology that afforded centralized monitoring and control of all resources.

Rooms To Go's overarching objective was to control every resource on the network directly from company headquarters. The company quickly became overwhelmed with the complex systems integration work that would be involved in using point solutions for managing its network, data security, help desk, event management, and other critical issues. Without a comprehensive enterprise management system in place, the retailer would have to add technicians who were experienced with the company's various platform-specific systems.

"With our relatively small staff, there was no way we could install point solutions and then seamlessly integrate all of them," said Buckley. "Unicenter TNG provides all the functionality we need, while letting us access all components from a central point of control - with a common user interface. It delivers all the network management functionality we require, while keeping our staffing levels stable and predictable."

To prevent its IT administrators from becoming overwhelmed, Rooms to Go is taking maximum advantage of Unicenter TNG's exception-based network management capabilities. The company sets thresholds for conditions such as system availability, bandwidth utilization, and network throughput, and when conditions exceed pre-established parameters, Unicenter TNG agents issue alerts. In many cases, the software can automatically isolate and remedy situations without manual intervention.

After the network management elements become fully operational next month, Rooms To Go plans to implement additional Unicenter TNG components - including data security, asset management, help desk, and software delivery functions.

To minimize service interruptions, Rooms To Go plans to install Unicenter TNG's Advanced Help Desk (AHD). The new system will replace a manual, labor-intensive service desk with a much more automated and integrated solution. "We are committed to controlling our help desk infrastructure on an enterprise basis," said Buckley. "That means controlling every aspect of help desk operations from a central point of control - from issuing problem tickets to creating a database of technical tips."

Until now, ensuring that all company desktops were outfitted with the latest versions of systems and applications software had been labor-intensive and error-prone. Unicenter TNG's Software Delivery capability will give technicians at company headquarters the ability to ensure that desktops across the enterprise always have the latest software releases, and that they are fully synchronized with other systems.

In addition, when Rooms to Go implements Unicenter TNG's Asset Management capability, the company will be in a better position to track its many hardware and software assets. This will also help ensure that only authorized copies of applications are in use.

Unicenter TNG is an integrated enterprise management solution that enables organizations to manage all IT resources, encompassing heterogeneous networks, systems, applications, and databases. It provides comprehensive end-to-end enterprise management for TCP/IP, SNA, IPX/SPX and DECnet networks, and 40 platforms including desktops, Windows NT, UNIX, AS/400, NetWare and mainframe environments.

Unicenter TNG is the only fully integrated management solution covering network discovery, topology, performance, events and status, security, software distribution, storage, workload, help desk, change management and other functions for traditional and distributed computing environments, as well as for the Internet and intranets. Unicenter TNG's intelligent manager/agent technology delivers highly scalable management of the entire computing environment, including hardware and software.

Computer Associates International, Inc. (NYSE: CA), with headquarters in Islandia, N.Y., is the world leader in mission-critical business software. The company develops, licenses and supports more than 500 integrated products that include enterprise computing and information management, application development, manufacturing and financial applications. CA has over 11,000 people in 160 offices in 43 countries and had revenue of $4.5 billion in calendar year 1997. CA can be reached by visiting http://www.cai.com on the World Wide Web, emailing [e-mail], or calling 1-516-342-5224.

Founded in 1991, Rooms To Go is the nation's fourth largest home furnishings chain. America's fastest growing furniture company, Rooms To Go had 1997 revenues of approximately $600 million. With stores throughout the southeastern U.S., the company plans for considerable expansion. Rooms To Go can be reached by calling 813-623-5400, or by visiting its web site at http://www.Roomstogo.com.

All product names referenced are the trademarks of their respective companies.

CONTACT: Kathy Gargano, [phone] or [e-mail]