Released on: April 22, 2008, 6:24 am

Press Release Author: CCSSS

Industry: Computers

Press Release Summary: Apr 21, 2008 - QMessage Monitor, the IBM System i message
monitoring and escalation solution from CCSS, has recently been chosen by the sixth
largest and fastest growing US automobile club in 2007, AAA Carolinas. In addition,
AAA Carolinas insurance business grew 23% in 2007, as compared to a 1% net premium
growth industry average. AAA Carolinas has only been in the insurance business for
8 years, and in that short period of time has grown to become the 22nd largest
personal lines agency in the nation.

Press Release Body: The 300 strong user community at AAA Carolinas supports more
than 1.7 million members and customers with the help of an IBM 520 System i,
partitioned 2 ways. From this, a number of important membership and insurance
applications are run to facilitate the wide range of services AAA Carolinas offer to
their customers - from automobile, homeowners, life/health, and travel insurance, to
emergency road assistance and a members' benefits programme.

Prior to implementing QMessage Monitor, the team at AAA Carolinas struggled with two
key systems management challenges that are common to many System i environments,
namely, a lack of visibility and accountability for urgent system messages. In
addition to this, they had no existing escalation procedures or event monitoring for
their membership and insurance applications. Without these in place, urgent system
messages that were not immediately, manually identified by operators could cause
consequential delays in processing member details or claims. In this case, the user
community would be left to drive problem identification back through to the
helpdesk, impinging on the time and efforts of all involved. The challenge for the
System team was clear; they required tools that would allow them to regain ownership
of system issues by identifying them in real-time and escalating them to ensure a
fast resolution that did not impact the user community.

QMessage Monitor now offers the team a central view of all exception messages on the
system and filters and responds to the bulk of messages automatically based on
pre-defined rules for each message type. When an urgent messages breaks on the
system today, an escalation procedure is invoked so messages have no ability to hold
up the user community. Out of hours/shift patterns and weekend/holiday schedules can
also be accommodated so each escalation path will be routed according to message
type and the availability of authorised personnel to resolve it. Each escalation
procedure is configurable to not only a number of people but also to a number of
devices, so an unanswered email alert may be followed up with a more direct alert to
the recipient's mobile phone or pager.

Whilst not a dedicated security solution, QMessage Monitor can be utilised to keep a
watchful eye on potentially suspicious activities. In the same way that exception
system messages are identified, escalated for resolution and archived for full audit
compliance, now real-time security breach messages on the Audit Journal and even
two-way FTP command monitoring are typical examples of how the solution might be
employed for internal or external audit compliance and enhanced security monitoring.


The impact on the team at AAA Carolinas has been considerable. CIO Laura Fanning,
explains, "As a team, we have greater accountability and ownership in regards to
issue escalation, event monitoring, and security monitoring due to the automated
visibility and event logs that the tool provides. We are now consistently meeting
or exceeding service level agreements for these critical applications. We have a
greater understanding of critical dependencies amongst internet, data warehouse, and
financial applications that reside on different platforms but require information
from the membership and insurance operational systems. And finally, we have been
able to be more proactive in identifying, responding to, and resolving issues before
they become known to or communicated by our user community."

For more information about CCSS visit: www.ccssltd.com

ENDS

About CCSS

CCSS develops, supports and markets IBM System i performance monitoring and
reporting, message management and remote management solutions. An Advanced IBM
Business Partner, CCSS develops powerful solutions to support some of the world's
most demanding System i environments across many industries including insurance,
banking, pharmaceutical and manufacturing. All CCSS solutions are IBM ServerProven.

Existing customers that rely on CCSS's feature-rich solutions include leading
organisations such as Volvo, Mattel, Newell-Rubbermaid, The Royal Bank of Scotland,
Siemens Medical, RWE npower and Waterstone's.



CCSS is headquartered in Gillingham, Kent, UK with key regional headquarters in
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; Bonn, Germany and Makati City, Philippines together
with a global agent network spanning Portugal, Brazil, the Netherlands Switzerland
and Sweden.

www.ccssltd.com

Notes for Editors:

For further information
Tarnya Franks
CCSS (Europe) Ltd
tarnya.franks@ccsseurope.co.uk
+44 (0) 1634 370 444


Web Site: http://www.ccssltd.com

Contact Details: CCSS (USA) Corp
Lynnbrooke Centre, Suite 100
2435 Lynn Road
Raleigh
North Carolina 27612

Tel: (919) 256-8260
Fax: (919) 256-8271