In addition, CA will provide customers with new three-dimensional diagrams or "subway maps" to track IT service support and service delivery functions so that an entire organization has a common reference point, Hurwitz said. Also, CA is adding 14 ITIL courses to its existing four and is prepared to do an assessment for a customer that evaluates the need for up to a dozen CA systems management products, Hurwitz said.

Two current CA customers said they have embraced ITIL best practices and were glad to see CA try to further the ITIL philosophy, but neither said there was anything specific within the announced Accelerator portfolio they plan to implement immediately.

"It's exciting. We have 'ITIL fever' here, including with upper IT management, and the CA platform has been successful" working within ITIL, said Robyn Brooks, an IT manager at MultiCare Health System in Tacoma, Wash. MultiCare, with three hospitals and 60 clinics, has deployed more than $100,000 in CA software in the past three years, including CA UniCenter Service Desk, she said.

Fran Findley, a project management analyst at MultiCare, said picking CA's software three years ago was "the perfect time to change the culture around IT in line with ITIL." The health system evolved from using the CA tools to be able to justify requests for more help desk workers when needed to recently being able to track whether service-level agreements for network and application performance are being met, Brooks and Findley said.

"But we're still in our infancy," Brooks said. Eventually, cost savings in IT investments will be a byproduct of the ITIL effort, she said.