System iNetwork

December 2009

December 9, 2009 11:19 AM

Quadrant Scores Big OEM Deal with Infor

Here's an interesting bit of i-focused action. Infor, which just announced its new IBM i document management solution for manufacturers, Infor Document Management for System i, is basically using Quadrant Software's IntelliChief document imaging product as an OEM solution, rebranded with the Infor name, of course. According to Quadrant Software, the solution suite consists of IntelliChief for the imaging/workflow piece, FastFax for the enterprise faxing and email, and Formtastic for the electronic forms creation.

It's a nice win. Infor is a strong ERP vendor with $2 billion in revenue and 70,000 customers. After various acquisitions, Quadrant says Infor was looking to find one solution that could handle the fax, forms, and imaging needs of their customers and which would work with all their ERP packages. Enter Quadrant's solution set.

"Infor is entrusting us with an exclusive deal that basically enables all their ERP XA, ERP System21, ERP PRMS, and ERP BPCS/LX customers to go paperless with IntelliChief," notes Gary Langton, co-founder and CEO of Quadrant Software. "Not only have we invested significant resources in IntelliChief prior to this agreement, but we have plans to do even more to make this partnership a success."

--Chris Maxcer, News Editor

Posted by cmaxcer on December 9, 2009 at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)

December 8, 2009 7:43 AM

2012: Not the End of the World, but Maybe the End of Your Job

Guest Post by Mel Beckman, System iNEWS senior technical editor

Forget the Mayan Calendar and its prediction of Earth's demise in 2012. We have a much more serious problem on our hands, predicted by the Potaroo Calendar, which projects exhaustion of the IPv4 address pool on August 31, 2012 (at this writing). And unlike the Mayan Day of Doom, the IPv4 runout date is getting earlier and earlier, because IPv4 address consumption is accelerating.

And you're not doing anything about it. Yes, I mean you!

I'm not sure why our industry is in collective denial about IPv4 address space exhaustion, but it is. Everywhere I go, I find network and IT folks saying, "Maybe IPv6 won't happen" and "I'm waiting for the big push." Well, it's going to happen, but there won't be a big push, just a slow, painful, long haul. And the longer you wait to get started, the more drudgery and pain you'll endure. You'll wish you had spent a year or so preparing for IPv6, rather than standing in the unemployment line in 2012 because your boss drop-kicked you for letting the company slide into Internet irrelevancy.

But you don't lose that job if you act now. You have perhaps a year to get IPv6 savvy and get your enterprise into the IPv6 cloud. According to the above-referenced Potaroo IPv4 Address Report (updated daily), 12 Aug 2012 is the drop-dead date for IPv4 addresses. But long before then, things will get expensive for IPv4 users. 2012 is when the last ISP gets an IPv4 block, but long before then, in the fall of 2011, the IANA will have dished out its last address to regional network authorities such as ARIN, the American Registry for Internet Numbers, and APNIC, the Asian-Pacific Network Information Centre. The price for IPv4 addresses will skyrocket (it has already more than doubled in the last year), and Internet growth will be severely constrained. Worse, these dates could be radically accelerated by new technologies, such as smart phones, cloud computing, and nano-networking.

Earlier this year, I attended the Google IPv6 Implementer's conference at Google's shiny Mountain View Googleplex. The presenters were mostly from organizations that had already made the move to IPv6 and lived to tell the tale. The consistent thread in these talks was that moving to IPv6 isn't hard, but it takes time to plan a secure, reliable IPv6 deployment. Google itself is entirely IPv6 connected inside and out, and we all enjoyed IPv6 WiFi at the conference. Many other major organizations have made the move, taking about a year in most cases for complete deployment. Keep in mind that moving to IPv6 doesn't mean abandoning IPv4. IPv6 deployment employs a dual-stack network, with every device having one leg in each camp. That's what takes all the planning: you must take care not to disrupt IPv4 applications while sliding an IPv6 layer into your infrastructure.

At the conference, I learned that most organization moved in three phases. First they brought IPv6 addressing to their Internet border, adding IPv6 support to their public-facing DNS server. This involved getting IPv6 addresses and connectivity, either from their ISP or from an IPv6 tunnel broker such as Hurricane Electric (tunnelbroker.net), and configuring IPv6-capable routing in their border router. In phase two, they added IPv6 connectivity to web, email, and other public-facing services. Combined with DNS, this gave them an official presence in the IPv6 world. Finally, in phase three, they brought IPv6 to desktop users and internal servers. This is the most time-consuming step and the one requiring the most careful planning. You must establish IPv6-secure perimeter security with an IPv6-capable firewall, enable dual-stack operation on your desktops (automatic for Windows 7 and Vista, but requiring activation in XP machines), and have a firm grasp of IPv6 troubleshooting techniques—because there's bound to be trouble, and if you're not ready for it, IPv6 will inflict pain on your users.

The road to IPv6 is well marked, if long. The first stop is to wrap your brain around IPv6 addressing and how it differs from IPv4. You can find many introductory articles online, but the fastest approach is to get one of the many IPv6 deployment books. O'Reilly's IPv6 Essentials, 2nd Edition (Hagen, Silvia, 2006) is a good one, but slightly dated. A more current, Windows-centric title is Understanding IPv6, 2nd Edition (Davies, Joseph, 2008). You needn't read this cover-to-cover; just study the introductory material and details of IPv6 addressing. An article I wrote for System iNEWS in April might also be helpful to you: "It's 2009. Do You Know Where Your IPv6 Addresses Are?"

The second waypoint is to set up your own personal IPv6 lab. There is no substitute for hands-on experience, and a lab is the best way to get it. A lab won't cost much: a few hundred dollars for an IPv6 router is all—IPv6 connectivity and addresses are free (for now). You could have a lab up and running in half a day. After gaining your IPv6 sea legs in a lab, you're ready to start deploying IPv6 live.

I've personally set up a dozen or so IPv6 labs for clients to experiment with IPv6, learning configuration tasks and troubleshooting techniques. An article (scheduled for an upcoming issue of System iNEWS) that I've written has step-by-step instructions, and in the interest of expediency, I've made an early copy available on our website now, just for you. You can read it here: "Hands-On IPv6 Lab Setup Guide"

—Mel Beckman, System iNEWS senior technical editor

Posted by lharty on December 8, 2009 at 7:43 AM | Comments (3)