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Ruminations on the System i Market

March 11, 2010

Tooting IBM i Horn Difficult When Clients Demand Stealth

Many big-name companies don't allow solution providers to mention that they use their tools or applications, which makes it hard for us to toot the IBM i horn! However, in response to "World-Class Companies Rely on IBM i - Case in Point: Nike" (Product Lines, February 18, 2010), LANSA reached out to us to tell us about several interesting case studies it has, including:

LANSA has more case studies posted at lansa.com/casestudies.

—Linda Harty, executive editor & availability/security/networking/connectivity editor

Posted by lharty on March 11, 2010 at 4:04 PM | Comments (0)

The 400 School Introduces Virtual Classroom for IBM i

The 400 School, Inc., has launched the Virtual Classroom for IBM i. Students can attend full-length, multi-day courses from their own desk or even from home, anywhere in the world. Geography is not a barrier to receiving System i technical training. Live, Instructor-led, lecture/lab style classes are scheduled starting in April:

  • April 12-16--Introduction to RPG IV Programming Workshop
  • April 19-21--System i (AS/400) Security Workshop
  • May 17-21--RPG IV Interactive Programming Workshop
  • May 24-28--System i (AS/400) Administration and Control

The 400 School has presented AS/400 and System i technical training classes to students at customer sites for more than 20 years. But now with the availability of live web audio and video technology, those same classes can be streamed--live--to student computers. "While there is a demand for operations, administration, and RPG IV programming classes, there remains few venues that can provide that training for individuals and companies that need to train one or two people," says Dan Riehl, president of The 400 School. "With the new Virtual Classroom, the same live training that we present at our customer sites is now available to individuals and companies all over the world, regardless of the number of students."

The 400 School's virtual classes also feature access to the school's System i (AS/400) during the class (IBM i 6.1), hands-on lab exercises with instructor oversight and assistance, shared live video from students using an optional webcam, and small class sizes geared to personal attention.

--Rita-Lyn Sanders, Programming & Systems Management editor

Posted by rsanders on March 11, 2010 at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)

March 9, 2010

Vision Solutions Announces PowerPack for POWER7 Migration

Vision Solutions, Inc., a high availability and disaster recovery (HA/DR) solutions provider in IBM Power Systems markets, announces the availability of a new Vision PowerPack for POWER7 Migration. This offering combines Vision Solutions software with the latest IBM POWER7 technologies to deliver cost-effective, turn-key solutions supporting virtualized, energy efficient, and resilient nonstop operations.

Vision Solutions' exclusive Information Availability Institute research indicates approximately half of the respondents intend to upgrade to IBM’s Power Systems platform (lack of time is one of the concerns cited by those not currently upgrading). Vision’s PowerPack for POWER7 Migration is designed to eliminate these hurdles, enabling customers to migrate to POWER7 with minimal downtime.

Market requirements for the PowerPack offerings were developed with a list of customers implementing IBM and Vision's integrated availability solutions. Discover how these offerings enable organizations of any size to improve service levels while managing risk: register for the March 16 webinar "Ride the POWER7 Surge" at visionsolutions.com.


—Linda Harty, executive editor & availability/security/networking/connectivity editor

Posted by lharty on March 9, 2010 at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)

Capitalware Helps Companies Secure Their WebSphere MQ Environments

Capitalware Inc. has created two new WebSphere MQ security products: MQ Channel Encryption (MQCE) and MQ Channel Encryption for z/OS (z/MQCE). These security products provide message encryption that is compliant with industry standards (including PCI) and governmental laws. MQCE works with WMQ v5.3, v6.0, or v7.0 (and MQSeries v5.2) on IBM i, Windows, Unix, and Linux environments. z/MQCE works with WebSphere MQ for z/OS v5.3.1, v6.0, or v7.0 on z/OS v1.4 or higher environments.

MQCE and z/MQCE provide encryption for MQ message data, which flows between WebSphere MQ (WMQ) resources. MQCE and z/MQCE operate with Sender, Receiver, Server, Requestor, Cluster-Sender, Cluster-Receiver, Server Connection, and Client Connection channels of the WMQ queue managers. Both security products use Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to encrypt the data.

To learn more about Capitalware Inc.'s WebSphere MQ products and the business value they provide, visit capitalware.biz.

—Linda Harty, executive editor & availability/security/networking/connectivity editor

Posted by lharty on March 9, 2010 at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

Patrick Townsend Security Solutions Announces Encryption Key Management Solution

Patrick Townsend Security Solutions (PTSS) has released a new encryption key management appliance named Alliance Key Manager. The appliance is OS independent and works with the IBM i and, according to PTSS marketing manager Scott Nelson, should be part of the data security plan for most enterprises employing an IBM i-based server.

Data privacy regulations such as PCI, HIPAA, and GLBA require organizations to not only encrypt data but to also securely manage the data encryption keys. Alliance Key Manager is a centrally administered solution for managing and storing symmetric encryption keys. It simplifies encryption key management for the enterprise. This new appliance racks up in any server environment and services all major business platforms, including IBM i, Linux, Unix, Windows, and IBM System z.

Alliance Key Manager is designed for easy integration with all software and hardware systems. Major features include:

  • NIST-certified: The Alliance Key Manager solution meets the following National Institute of Standards in Technology (NIST) validations: NIST AES (all key sizes, all modes of encryption), NIST SHA, NIST RNG, and NIST FIPS-140-2 Level 1. Alliance Key Manager is in the process of receiving the FIPS 140-2 certification.
  • Automation and easy deployment: Alliance Key Manager is a non-intrusive solution that doesn't require the installation of outside agent software in the enterprise. Administrators can configure, manage, import, export, create, and expire thousands of keys automatically from a central location.
  • Control key access: Encryption keys can be regulated so that only the right users have access to the data. Key access can be restricted to a specific list of users, a specific list of groups, or specific users within a group. Distinguished names in security certificates allow the administrator to enforce user and group controls, reducing physical key management time and cost.
  • Key mirroring and hot back up: Key servers that control access to data must be resilient. Alliance Key Manager automatically mirrors keys between multiple key management appliances over a secure and mutually authenticated SSL/TLS connection. It is an efficient solution for hot backup and disaster recovery support of sensitive encrypted data.
  • Secure logging: Everything the key server does should be auditable. Alliance Key Manager has built-in logging, allowing administrators to track all key retrieval, management, and system activity. Reports can be sent automatically to a central log management console, alerting facilities, or to SIEM products for a timely and permanent record of all activity.

Visit patownsend.com to request a demonstration.

—Linda Harty, executive editor & availability/security/networking/connectivity editor

Posted by lharty on March 9, 2010 at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)

March 3, 2010

Tango/04 Computing Group a Sponsor of Regional IT Event in Boston

Tango/04 Computing Group, a developer of enterprise monitoring software, will participate as a sponsor at the Midsize Enterprise Summit Regional Series Boston, the second of a series of three regional events. This particular one will be held on March 11 in the Westin Waltham Hotel, Boston.

With education as the key component, both senior IT executives and technology vendors will be able to find common ground and multiple networking opportunities.

Tango/04 will participate by hosting a roundtable on how to achieve IT business service visibility and control, and will present its "1-2-3" monitoring strategy, which explains the use of its multiplatform solution to (1) monitor all technological infrastructure and applications, (2) provide sustainable compliance and realtime security control, and (3) manage business processes in a centralized way.

The company will also be available for meetings at its booth, for which attendees can make an appointment in advance by e-mailing salesusa@tango04.net.

—Linda Harty, executive editor & availability/security/networking/connectivity editor

Posted by lharty on March 3, 2010 at 1:04 PM | Comments (0)

March 2, 2010

Quick Takes: Vendor News Roundup for Security and Availability Beats

Raz-Lee Security to Provide Imperva with IBM i Security Technology for Imperva's Database Monitoring Tool
Raz-Lee Security Inc., a supplier of information security solutions for IBM i servers, announces a partnership to provide technology for Imperva's SecureSphere Agent for DB2/400, to be available this month.

Imperva's cross-platform analysis and reporting of database activity, together with Raz-Lee's IBM i security expertise, enable SecureSphere customers to enjoy seamless integration of IBM i database security with similar functionalities on other platforms. Raz-Lee's technology embedded in SecureSphere Agent for DB2/400 enables SecureSphere to monitor all database activities, including insert, update, delete, and read access to sensitive business data. This is achieved by tracking information sources such as the IBM i audit journal (QAUDJRN), database journals, or ODBC network requests.

Crossroads Systems and Help/Systems Partner to Deliver Data Protection Solutions for IBM i
Crossroads Systems, Inc., a global provider of solutions to connect, protect, secure, and restore data, and Help/Systems, LLC, the world leader in operations automation software within the IBM i market, today announced a significant technology partnership.

Through technological collaboration, Crossroads' SPHiNX appliance now integrates transparently with Help/Systems' Robot/SAVE solution, offering reliable, secure, and cost-efficient backup and recovery solutions for IBM i. The partnership creates a significant new sales channel for Crossroads' SPHiNX product and opens additional integration opportunities with Help/Systems' Robot/SCHEDULE and Robot/REPORTS solutions.

Integrated together, SPHiNX, Robot/SAVE, Robot/SCHEDULE, and Robot/REPORTS operate seamlessly to deliver error-free automated media management of IBM i systems. Users also gain a suite of data security and management benefits, including complete object inventory of systems, audit trails, encryption, and optional use of tape. The solutions will be offered through Help/Systems to target both Crossroads customers and the Help/Systems customer base of more than 21,000 organizations.

Help/Systems will host a free webinar on Thursday, March 18, from 12-1 p.m. Central / 1-2 p.m. Eastern to highlight the Help/Systems Robot/SAVE and Crossroads SPHiNX integration. To register, visit helpsystems.com/training-schedule.

nuBridges Leads Efforts for Tokenization Standardization Body at RSA
nuBridges is taking the lead to form a new industry standards group for tokenization, a new data security that's rapidly gaining traction with CISOs who want to reduce PCI DSS scope and compliance costs, and protect volumes of credit cardholder, personal and health information. However, with no standards in place for tokenization, security can be jeopardized and customers may have trouble adapting their systems to future security improvements.

"Tokenization augments encryption to increase the security of sensitive data, but there are no standards for tokenization," said John Pescatore, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "Without standards, there is no consistent way to validate the security achieved by various tokenization approaches. Because tokenization solutions are becoming more widely used, standards are needed to ease both evaluation and interoperability of tokenization."

The purpose of the Tokenization Standards Group is to develop industry standards for the tokenization data security model to ensure a high level of security and interoperability among tokenization solutions. nuBridges is inviting all tokenization vendors to join the new group and as such is making this announcement at the RSA 2010 conference.

—Linda Harty, executive editor & availability/security/networking/connectivity editor

Posted by lharty on March 2, 2010 at 3:40 PM | Comments (0)

February 18, 2010

World-Class Companies Rely on IBM i - Case in Point: Nike

Safestone Technologies, a supplier of IBM i security and compliance solutions, announces that Nike, well-known manufacturer of athletic wear and equipment, has chosen Safestone's DetectIT security solutions as its worldwide standard for security audit and compliance solutions on the IBM i. Nike operates in over 160 countries and has more than 30,000 employees.

"We have relied on IBM AS/400 (which later became Power Systems with the IBM i operating system) since the distribution center was established in 1994," says Johan Veestraeten in an IBM-copyrighted case study available on Safestone's website. Veestraeten is in charge of the logistics infrastructure and technology worldwide at Nike. Nike knew in the wake of regulations such as SOX, PCI, and Basel II that it needed a cost-effective and easy-to-implement solution that let it report on policy exceptions across multiple systems located around the world. The company's search ended with Safestone's DetectIT security solutions for the System i, which addressed all its security, audit, and compliance needs.

The first installation of DetectIT was in Nike's European distribution center in Laakdal, Belgium, which supplies 52 countries with Nike clothing, footwear, and accessories. Nike uses DetectIT to continuously monitor critical files and provide alerts when an unauthorized action is taken. The solution also provides a comprehensive set of reports, letting administrators manage internal audit requests.

You can read the full Nike case study on Safestone's website. The case study offers a fascinating description of Nike's distribution center setup and discusses how the implementation process went and how the company uses the solution.

[Editor's Note: System iNEWS is always pleased to share stories like this about companies' use of the IBM i. If you have a story to tell, send us a note.]

—Linda Harty, executive editor & availability/security/networking/connectivity editor

Posted by lharty on February 18, 2010 at 11:49 AM | Comments (6)

January 26, 2010

SkyView Poised for Growth with New CEO

SkyView Partners, Inc., has hired Tom Coccione as its CEO. Current CEO John Vanderwall, cofounder of SkyView along with Carol Woodbury, will immediately assume the role of chairman of the board and chief operating officer. Coccione has 22 years of experience in the software industry and spent 13 of those years at IBM in sales and sales management. I spoke with Coccione recently to learn a little more about his plans for SkyView. Coccione told me that before deciding to join SkyView, he researched the IBM i space and found that "the importance and value of the i is still at the heart of these companies, and within that industry, compliance is rapidly becoming important."

System iNEWS: What motivated you to join SkyView?
Coccione: I was with IBM for 13 years, but I've never really been specifically in the security industry, so when this SkyView opportunity came up, I did my due diligence, and I saw a rapidly emerging market in the compliance area. Four or five years ago, you didn't hear a lot about compliance, but today it's becoming pretty common. As I looked at the compliance industry, I saw it as a significant emerging market. The majority of the market is still manual and very labor intensive. As these companies evaluate an automated software solution, they see an immediate ROI. It's one of those "markets within a market" that's emerging rapidly, and it's sizable. It's also the kind of market that, particularly with government regulations increasing, is going to be a growing market despite the economy. We were up 13 percent over last year, and we'd have done even better with more sales resources.

My skill set fits well with SkyView's vision to rapidly grow the business. From my past business experience in enterprise software sales, I know that raising investment capital and building infrastructure and process will help SkyView in growing the business.

Tom Coccione, SkyView Partners CEOSiN: How do you envision your business growing?
Coccione: SkyView has the opportunity to grow geometrically. The IBM i market is still relatively untapped. With additional sales resources and aggressive marketing, we believe we can increase revenues by 20 percent in 2010. Our cross-platform strategy, which will be announced later in the year, gives SkyView the opportunity to grow exponentially. I think we're very focused with our products—Policy Minder and Risk Assessor—and they solve some major problems for companies, and I like that focus and the design. The products are deep in maturity. So I see SkyView Partners not moving so much to additional product lines but to additional platforms. A number of our customers have shown interest in that. So you will see SkyView taking the strengths that we have in our products to other platforms. We'll focus on our very strong loyal customer base. Our brand has been established within the IBM i world, and we want to leverage and expand upon that. Partners, especially those in the ASP and outsourcing model, will be key in expanding our market share.

SiN: What is your product strategy going forward?
Coccione: Our satisfied customer base is crucial to our future growth and success. We are looking at other products and tools to expand and complement our products. We have a very high maintenance-renewal rate because of high customer satisfaction with our products. Risk Assessor is designed to easily download for customers to have a free trial.

There's a strategy to add on more products, whether our partners' or our own, and that will enhance the current product line. Our strategy for 2010, since we'll be focusing on our customer base, is to gain market share, and we're planning to expand our sales organization as well. In terms of the market, the health care market is going to be a priority market for us.

SkyView Partners is at the right place at the right time in this emerging compliance market. It has established its brand as a quality product that solves a major, labor-intensive problem for a customer. John and Carol have earned a reputation that will give the company a strong value proposition on other platforms. I believe my skill set and experience comes at a perfect time to grow the business.



—Linda Harty, executive editor & availability/security/networking/connectivity editor

Posted by lharty on January 26, 2010 at 2:55 PM | Comments (0)

December 17, 2009

Wish List Fulfillment: Raz-Lee Helps Replicate User and Security Settings Between Systems

Raz-Lee Security recently announced enhancements to its iSecurity product suite, and I spoke with Eli Spitz, Raz-Lee Security's vice president of business development, to get more information, as well as to get his take on the latest trends he's noticing in the security market as 2009 winds down.

What's hot in security these days? What are your customers asking for help with?

Spitz: In the industry in general, a trend we're seeing is companies consolidating their environment into multi-system and multi-LPAR networks. Over the past year or so, we've sold into large banks running well-known banking applications, especially in Europe; some even have P40s and P50s, but certainly the trend is to the smaller systems, P10s and P20s. The real challenge for companies is the management and coordination of these networked systems. You don't want to repeat work that you've done on one system for security and compliance—you don't want to have to do that again on other systems. You want to be able to reuse definitions, rules, and alerts that you've set up.

So we're answering to this trend, and our latest batch of features that we've released really relates to this. In fact, these features were specifically requested by a large U.S. financial institution. They have 100+ systems/LPARs, and what they asked for was help with the whole issue of replication: ensuring that definitions are in sync, user profiles are all in sync, and system values are all in sync. Of course there will be exceptions, for example between user profile or system value definitions on test as opposed to production systems, and we allow for this as well in our products.

A really interesting aspect of multi-system management is simultaneously checking compliance levels in these diverse environments. For this, the Compliance Evaluator product that we released about a year ago offers the possibility of evaluating a site's compliance level over any subset of systems, against both site-defined standards as well as regulatory requirements. In fact, the product comes with built-in PCI, SOX, and HIPAA compliance checks that can be run after minimum site customization. And, within the product, we allow for exceptions and unique definitions for the different environments existing at all sites. So alongside the Compliance Evaluator product, which gives a compliance score for individual systems, we've added the ability to replicate definitions, rules, product parameters, and values from one system to another—in the area of user profiles, system values, etc.

So that's one trend that we've been seeing. Another trend we've also addressed, which is important in large companies, is native object security. IBM a couple of years ago came out with a product called Secure Perspectives, whose purpose is to address native object security—defining various levels of user access rights to objects defined in the system. But Secure Perspectives sort of lost focus and has not seen wide market acceptance. As of recently, there is a group in IBM that is involved with that product again. [Editor's Note: IBMer Terry Ford says that IBM's STG Lab Services Security Team has begun new work on Secure Perspectives. Read Ford's comment in our Product Lines blog.]

Native object security is really important because you're always going to have to get down to the basic object that you need to secure, and there's no easy and error-prone way of doing that in large shops.

So, to answer to this growing concern, we've developed a rules-based solution that fully supports generic names for securing, defining, and monitoring access levels to all objects in the system, including all different levels of access—read, add, update, execute, delete, etc. [Editor's Note: See "Raz-Lee Security Releases New Modules for Security Tool Suite."]

A third trend we're seeing is the increasing awareness and concern about application security. Just last week, we concluded a deal in the UK through our rep there, Northdoor, for a financial institution that originally purchased our Firewall and Audit products and has now added the AP-Journal solution. We've been very successful selling this product because it allows for monitoring application-level data and alerting anyone, in realtime via SMS, e-mail, message, or SYSLOG, when application data changes by more than a predefined threshold—percentage or absolute.

As an example, one of our customers is a large medical-supply and healthcare distributor that monitors online the stock levels of all items, and when the level-on-hand goes below a certain value, they'll send out an SMS message automatically to somebody so they can reorder the item. That's just one example, but it's easy to understand how it works.

A related issue is the potentially serious security breach we've been hearing more and more about from companies when data is accessed (read) and not necessarily updated. Originally, our application journal product was based solely upon what IBM provides—journal receivers, which we can filter, monitor, and use to send out alerts. What IBM journal receivers don't do is record accesses—simple reads!

To solve the read access challenge, we developed a solution that integrates with AP-Journal for monitoring these read accesses. So if, for example, someone does access my particular salary, it will be more constrictive. Fewer people can access it, but if they do view it, we can issue the alert. So application security is also brought up as a requirement more and more, and of course we're making a big push out of it and marketing in that direction—spreading the buzz. And companies are responding positively, saying that their auditors would like this solution.

I mentioned that the realtime alerts that we generate in all our products, in Firewall, Audit, Authority on Demand, or AP-Journal, can be a SYSLOG message. So another trend we're noticing is the increasing implementation of system event management (SEM) systems by multi-platform shops. It's basically a central console that accepts event notices from different nodes in the enterprise, which can be any appropriate hardware, for example IBM i, z, or whatever. Or it could be a Wintel or Unix box. With our support for SYSLOG, the Power i is now much better integrated into overall site management.

I think I've covered all the major trends we're seeing and how we've addressed them. Looking to the future, we're doing a lot of development and integration work right now with some financial application companies using mostly AP-Journal, and we will soon be announcing a related OEM agreement we've signed. You'll hear more about that in January.

Also on tap during the upcoming half year or so are graphical and statistical analysis features in AP-Journal, including identifying field-level trends and activity, and the extension of Compliance Evaluator to other platforms, including Windows, Linux, and others. We will be expanding marketing efforts as well and signing up more distributors and looking to establish more OEM agreements.

The bottom line is, we're looking forward to a very successful 2010!

Here are links to some of the other System iNetwork coverage on Raz-Lee Security:

—Linda Harty, executive editor & availability/security/networking/connectivity editor

Posted by lharty on December 17, 2009 at 8:14 AM | Comments (0)

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