Product Lines

Ruminations on the System i Market.

May 13, 2008

CNX Takes RPG to the Web with Valence

At RPG World in Las Vegas, CNX hung out a shingle to tout its Valence Web Application Framework for the System i product. Valence is a development environment that lets RPG programmers and developers create Web 2.0 browser interfaces with RPG. The product controls System i library lists and security for all programs and lets users access options via a navigation tree. Richard Milone, managing partner of CNX, revealed that the RPGers he spoke to were excited about adding to their RPG skills – they wanted to learn about JavaScript, ext JS, and JSON (JavaScript Object Notation).

Milone, an RPGer himself, said his team tried other options (e.g., WebSphere, Java, etc.) to webify its green-screen apps, but none of the available tools really fit the bill. "We wanted to use RPG as the core language, we wanted to provide the best browser, and we didn't want to use a middleman, so we created Valence," says Milone.

CNX provides four main components to the Valence Framework: ext JS, Valence RPG toolkit, charting capability, and the Valence viewpoint portal. The CNX team built the toolkit and portal from scratch, but the company pays the licenses for the ext JS and charting components. According to Milone, the Valence RPG toolkit is the only one that provides a JSON front end.

The product is aimed mainly at organizations with a well-established RPG base that want to take/develop RPG apps to the web. Although the folks at CNX embrace RPG, they do provide training on new skills to help you move your green screens to a sharp-looking, interactive browser interface.

Posted by cbushong on May 13, 2008 at 4:08 PM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2008

PostgreSQL: The Next Open-Source Friendly Giant?

MySQL is the most popular open-source database for PHP and other web applications. PostgreSQL is favored second but still lags behind MySQL in number of installations. However, many applications can use either database, and PostgreSQL's reputation for feature abundance, standards compliance, and bullet-proof dependability makes it a good choice for mission-critical development.

Last year IBM teamed with MySQL AB to support the open-source MySQL on i5/OS -- good news for System i developers who want to port PHP and other open-source applications. Sun's acquisition of MySQL AB early this year, however, complicates IBM's MySQL support because Sun competes directly with IBM for e-commerce and other server business.

IBM added pepper to the pot in late March by investing in EnterpriseDB, a PostgreSQL vendor (but not the owner of PostgreSQL development). The EnterpriseDB's Postgres Plus product line is a value-added package that combines the free PostgreSQL database with proprietary management tools and an interface to Oracle. If supported by IBM for its AIX and System i users, it could be an alternative to MySQL.

Although open-source fans are undoubtedly glad to see serious financial support for projects such as MySQL, it probably makes them nervous when a big player such as Sun steps in as owner of it all. With its popular Open Office project, its recent move to make Unix variant Solaris open, and its opening of source code for many Java components, Sun shines in open-source territory.

It can't hurt, though, to have another friendly giant with a free database on the landscape. IBM and PostgreSQL make a good combination and will keep Sun on its toes. If IBM fully integrates PostgreSQL with the native System i database engine, PostgreSQL will emerge as a robust, fully supported hardware package perfect for acute enterprise applications. System i will win by becoming a broader, more bewitching development platform leveraging its most important asset -- the firmware-integrated DB2 database.

Posted by vhamende on May 12, 2008 at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

May 5, 2008

CYBRA Goes Viral

Another company in our industry has gone mainstream by launching its new viral advertising videos on YouTube. Last week, CYBRA unleashed a new marketing campaign for its barcode and RFID software, MarkMagic, on the web. The company posted all seven chronicles of “The 2,000 Year Old Programmer” (a.k.a. “2K”) and his cool and hip counterpart, “Auto-ID,” on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/cybratv), its own website (http://www.cybra.com), and a new mini-site highlighting MarkMagic (http://www.markmagic.com/MarkMagic_single.html).

The videos showcase 2K’s conversion from the difficult and ridiculous ways of creating barcodes and forms to the use of MarkMagic at the advice of Auto-ID. Auto-ID even introduces 2K to the wonders of RFID and how one can quickly and easily create the tags with MarkMagic. The videos are extremely entertaining. An 80-year-old retired school principal plays “The 2,000 Year Old Programmer,” who even dances at the end of one of the videos after exclaiming, “MarkMagic rocks!” Pretty silly stuff! My favorite moment in the videos is when 2K holds up a live mouse and asks, "How do you click a mouse?"

If you like seeing System i and System i applications rising in popular culture, check out the videos and support CYBRA for their efforts.

Posted by cdeemer on May 5, 2008 at 1:28 PM | Comments (0)

April 29, 2008

API Group Wins First Annual Zend/IBM PHP Innovation Award

The winner of the first annual Zend/IBM PHP Innovation Award is API Group, Inc., which utilizes PHP to web-enable its entire ERP system. Headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, API Group is a family of companies that provides services in specialty construction, distribution, fabrication manufacturing, and fire protection and systems. API’s goal is to continue to expand within the specialized construction and construction-related industries (it already has more than 26 companies). The API Group uses PHP as a basis for the integration and unification of its growing family of independently owned enterprises.

To select the first Innovation Award winner, Zend and IBM teamed to judge i5/OS users and their production of PHP applications based on complexity, concept, value, and benefit to the PHP community. The award lets Zend and IBM show their continual cooperation as they offer PHP support for the i community. Their partnership gives System i users integrated Zend and IBM software.

Posted by vhamende on April 29, 2008 at 8:28 AM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2008

Bytware's i5virus Nominated for Webby

It's fun when our industry makes it into the mainstream, and that's what happened to security and monitoring vendor Bytware this week when its YouTube video, i5virus, was nominated for the 12th Annual Webby Awards' Best Sound Design of 2008 category. i5virus is a System i espionage YouTube video and game campaign that launched in October of last year. The Webby winners will be announced on May 6 and honored at a ceremony in New York City on June 9.

You can view the i5virus video on YouTube and play the game at i5virus.com. For behind-the-scenes information about the making of the game and video, check out "The i5virus Backstory."

You can vote for your favorite Webby nominee at webbyawards.com. Voting closes on May 1.

— Linda Harty, web strategic editor

Posted by lharty on April 22, 2008 at 5:19 PM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2008

Going Green on Big Blue

In the April 15 issue of the Systems Management newsletter, I read a very interesting article titled "Dataupia Breaks Down
the ‘Greening Equation.’" Written by Michelle Savage, it explores a new server that claims to use just 10 percent of the power of an average server. The article notes, "Research shows that IT organizations face increasing pressure to adopt 'green' or energy-efficient computing practices. A Gartner study showed that the No. 1 strategic technology for 2008 is green IT. An IDC survey said that nearly 80 percent of executives say that green IT is a growing priority for their businesses, and more than 50 percent of customers consider IT vendors’ 'greenness' when choosing a supplier."

It got me thinking -- what are vendors in the System i world doing to appeal to those environmentally conscious consumers? There are a few companies that are definitely trying to do something.

The new IBM servers promise to increase efficiency. Check out more here.

Also, businesses are moving to paperless document management. Reducing the amount of paper used directly benefits the environment in two ways: less landfill matter and fewer toppled trees.

I have to give credit to InFORM Decisions on this one for their slew of document automation solutions that help businesses go paperless, but there's also a brand new initiative all about going green. Check it out here.

Elite Document Solutions, Inc., offers EliteSUITE, a family of document-management solutions that provides modules for automatic generation, distribution, archiving, and imaging of electronic documents to provide a complete paperless solution.

Quadrant Software, Inc., provides IntelliChief -- a paperless process-management solution that lets users create, capture, archive, retrieve, establish workflow, and distribute documents electronically. Its components include document management, electronic forms, workflow, and fax technologies that users can combine into a complete solution or use independently to enhance particular business processes.

NetManage's iPrint lets companies convert files to PDF and Excel formats and facilitate realtime electronic material distribution instead of wasting paper on manual distribution.

Also, another interesting new tool is provided by the Green Grid, a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. Among the members, I spotted several i-vendors, including SunGard and EMC.

I can't wait to see what product suppliers for the beloved i will come up with next. Solar-powered servers? You never know. . . .

Posted by ebradford on April 15, 2008 at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)

April 8, 2008

The Latest Zend Trend: Tightened i Integration

The trend for Zend is tightened i interoperability, per the company's announcements at COMMON and its release of Zend Framework 1.5.

The news in Nashville debuted as "Multi-year collaboration between IBM and Zend results in strong adoption of PHP for web application development on System i." Translation: Years of effort have led to downloads from thousands of i-focused clients.

Here are the highlights:

-- The open-source-based Zend Core 2.5.2 for the i, which includes an updated PHP engine, increased PHP script performance, and a Windows-based installation option.

-- The Zend Platform 3.6 production environment with its increased PHP application performance and Zend 5250 Bridge, an API for running interactive apps through a browser.

-- A fast-paced consulting engagement called JumpStart, designed to help an enterprise extend the reach of its i environment.

-- Zend Studio for Eclipse, a PHP IDE that will release in Q3 with all the components needed to support the lifecycle of PHP apps created on the i.

Earlier, Zend Technologies announced the availability of Version 1.5 of the open-source PHP Zend Framework. "Both Zend Core 2.5 and Zend Platform 3.6 support Zend Framework and have capabilities that make any Zend Framework application run better," reports Kent Mitchell, director of product marketing. "It is important to note, however, that Zend Framework is a general-purpose open-source framework for PHP that Zend supports, but it is not a commercial product from Zend. It is developed by a wide community with contributions from many companies and individuals."

Although Version 1.5 doesn't offer support for DB2 on the i, the folks at Zend say that's not a show stopper. "There is PHP support for DB2 for the i5 that already exists, so users will be able to access their data on the DB2/400 databases on the i5," Mitchell notes.

"Since Zend Framework 1.5 is a use-at-will architecture, developers can pick and choose what part they use," Mitchell continues. "Unlike some frameworks, you are not required to use Zend Framework’s DB access. So developers could use Zend Framework’s MVC to build modern web applications or the support for web services or whatever they need. Later, when the open-source community adds DB2 support for i5, people could replace what they are using for data access and have a totally portable application."

Given other benefits that developers would get from Zend Framework, Mitchell maintains that "there is probably no good reason not to adopt it [Version 1.5] today and use as much (or as little) as makes sense for their applications."

Andi Gutmans, CTO and co-founder of Zend Technologies, says that with the release of 1.5, "Zend continues to deliver on the promise of making PHP an accessible language for building modern web applications and web services of any scope, from startup Web 2.0 sites to major business critical enterprise web applications."

The company is also offering a new subscription support service that includes consulting time for inquiries related to methodology and a guaranteed per-incident response time for addressing issues related to Zend Framework project code.

Posted by vhamende on April 8, 2008 at 8:25 AM | Comments (0)

April 5, 2008

nuBridges Certifies on V6R1

nuBridges, Inc. has certified its file transfer and data protection software products for V6R1. "Businesses transitioning to an updated operating system release can experience security breaches or application failures if their security solutions don't work immediately," said Gary Palgon, vice president of product management for nuBridges. "We have precertified our software products on the i5/OS V6R1 platform so that customers transitioning to the new operating system have secure connections and uninterrupted data protection starting day one." nuBridges' V6R1-compliant solutions are available immediately.

Posted by lharty on April 5, 2008 at 4:29 PM | Comments (0)

Tango/04 Monitoring Solutions

Tango/04 Computing Group, a developer of software for systems management, security auditing, and business service management reports that in 2007 it added more than 100 customers, and its international sales grew more than 30 percent. Like me, you're probably wondering why Tango/04 had such a good year when 2007 was generally a bad year for System i revenues. I posed the question to Tango/04 CEO and founder Raul Cristian Aguirre, and he replied, "Existing System i customers have a growing necessity to monitor their applications and to comply with security laws and regulations. So we are effectively growing our market share. What is really happening is that people have to deal with more and more complexity as their System i is just a part of a large chain of infrastructure."

Expanding on what's behind Tango/04's 2007 growth, and whether it was driven by System i product sales or by product sales for other platforms, Aguirre says that 90 percent of their sales are to companies running System i applications, "We are obviously selling a mix, with products to monitor Security and IT infrastructure on platforms other than the System i, but they are mostly part of a System i sale. But by choosing us, companies can have just one solution to monitor all their operations, security, and business services in realtime." Tango/04 offers realtime enterprise monitoring and develops software solutions for application monitoring, security and compliance monitoring, and management of business services and service level objectives. The company's solutions can monitor System i, Windows, Linux, and Unix platforms.

Posted by lharty on April 5, 2008 at 3:04 PM | Comments (0)

April 1, 2008

Day 3 at the Expo: The Security & Networking/Connectivity Beat

Today was the final day of the Expo. The overall feeling I got was that it's been a good, productive show with plenty of traffic. I was able to visit with several exhibitors today to give you another sampling of what's new in the networking/connectivity and security beats:

I talked to Raz-Lee about iSecurity, its suite of security products for System i. iSecurity incorporates the Prevention Pack, the Compliance pack, and -- what Eli Spitz, vice president of business development, says sets Raz-Lee apart from its competitors -- the Application Security Pack. The Prevention Pack includes such modules as firewall, anti-virus, password management, user profile manager, and more. The Compliance Pack includes an audit module, an action module for invoking corrective and reporting procedures for detected breaches, system and MSGQ control, and AP-journal regulation compliance. The Application Security Pack includes a capture module (realtime green-screen-tracking), AP-journal analysis and alerts, and a view module (field- and record-level security for hiding sensitive information).

Over at the Fax*Star booth, I gleaned information about Max400, a software utility that tunes and maximizes interactive CPW performance of the System i. Recently upgraded to work with V5R4 and higher, Max400 scans the system regularly and resets certain flags within jobs that indicate whether the job has sent I/O to a display device. Resetting the flags prevents them from causing the job to trigger the interactive governor's slow-down process.

Next, I spoke with Bytware about their latest news: the expansion of the StandGuard Anti-Virus family of products to include a module for scanning IBM Lotus Domino mail and databases on the System i. An optional add-on for StandGuard Anti-Virus System i, StandGuard Anti-Virus for Domino (powered by McAfee) includes mail scanning, database scanning, quarantine, realtime alerts, automatic updating of antivirus databases, scheduling, and logging.

Meanwhile, the news at the Biscom exhibit was the new features just announced for its FAXCOM for iSeries product. Some of the enhancements are: the ability to attach a Windows PC document to your fax/e-mail; the addition of e-mail cc and bcc fields to the FAXCOM global address book; an e-mail history that keeps track of all recipients transmitted to rather than just the last one; the ability to have more than one e-mail recipient when using a custom address book with the scan monitor; a new command in the API monitor; and a new parameter in the SDMSPLFAXB.