System iNetwork

March 2008

March 31, 2008 2:42 PM

Impressions from a First-Time Attendee

I had lunch with first-time attendee Juanice Reed today. She's an RPG programmer with National American Insurance Company in Chandler, Oklahoma. Juanice has been programming since 1980 and is excited about being at her first COMMON. She says the very first thing she learned here was why . . . By that, she means, even though she has known about, went through instruction for, and understood things such as WDSc, she didn't really know why she would want to use it or how it fit into the context of her work. After attending a session on WDSc, she says, "Now I have a reason for why I should use this." Juanice adds, "These instructors know their stuff, and it's great to learn it from somebody who knows so much and has already done it and has tried these things and knows what works and what doesn't work."

— Linda Harty, web strategic editor

Posted by lharty on March 31, 2008 at 2:42 PM | Comments (0)

Day 2 at the Expo: The Security & Networking/Connectivity Beat

So far today, I've had several interesting visits to blog about. It's been busy at the Expo. I stopped by the MPI Tech booth and learned about Spool2Print, a spooling, print management, and printing software solution. Spool2Print supports distributed printing using common network printers. It has a GUI for managing print jobs, letting you duplicate, print, release, and reroute jobs.

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I made my way over to the SkyView Partners booth to chat with them about their collaboration with Innovatum to add a realtime plug in to Policy Minder, Skyview's compliance management tool. The newly released Policy Minder Real Time uses Innovatum's DataThread technology to capture events affecting compliance as they occur, and it notifies the security officer with an e-mail message, identifying who made the change and letting the recipient run a Policy Minder compliance check or run correction procedures to bring the system back into compliance.

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Onward! Next I stopped by EXTOL's display and got the lowdown on EXTOL Business Extenders, which let you automate the integration of non-EDI data. Released in late 2007, Business Extenders are fully functional subsets of the EXTOL Business Integrator, and they help you meet project-level integration requirements, such as database integration, spreadsheet and flat file integration, XML data integration, and web services integration.

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Keep your browser open to this page for more reports from the Expo floor!

— Linda Harty, web strategic editor

Posted by lharty on March 31, 2008 at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)

March 30, 2008 9:26 PM

From the Expo Floor: Reports on Networking and Security Products

I made a few rounds of the Expo floor at COMMON today and met some of the vendors in my "beat" — networking/connectivity and security. Now, I didn't have a chance to meet every vendor in my category, but it looks like there's a lot of new and interesting stuff going on in these areas. Here's what I've learned so far, and I'll keep you posted on what else I discover as COMMON 2008 progresses:

BOSaNOVA told me about two interesting releases: a new wireless tablet thin client and a set of Linux thin clients. The wireless tablet is IP53 compliant, meaning that it's resistant to water and dust. The tablet, called the 410XP BOStablet, uses the AMD Geode LX800 processor, Microsoft's XP Embedded OS, and full-screen 5250/3270 emulation.

The upgraded Linux firmware has a new interface that provides a Vista look and feel. It also has a new ICA client and ICA PN Agent Client Version 10. BOSaNOVA worked with Citrix to develop a proprietary PN Agent for published applications. In addition, support of Provisions Networks VDI client is included with the new release for connection to a connection broker in a virtual desktop environment. BOSaNOVA says many other updates have been added, and you can find more information on its website.

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Next, I visited the PowerTech booth. They've upgraded all their products to work with V6R1. PowerTech's CTO, John Earl, said, "By investing in, and ensuring that, our products are ready for V6R1, we're sending a clear message that we remain committed to supporting and upgrading our security and compliance solutions."

PowerTech has been testing its products against early versions of V6R1 since late 2007. Most of the products were already compatible with V6R1, but in some cases new product updates are required in order to run on V6R1. The PowerTech solutions that require new releases to support V6R1 are now available:

• Compliance Monitor 2.1
• Network Security 5.2.1
• Authority Broker 3.1.1
• Security Audit 2.1.1

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At the Innovatum, Inc., booth, I learned about DT/VSSA for System i — a product that lets you add biometric electronic signatures to legacy apps and transactions without programming or changes to existing code. I got to see the small biometric device that scans the user's thumbprint. It plugs into any USB port. Pretty nifty. You can add electronic signatures to current transactions, authenticate users at application logon, transaction, and data levels. More info on their website.

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I popped over to the Linoma Software booth and got the scoop on its latest release: GoAnywhere, a solution that automates data retrieval, translation, encryption, compression, and distribution — all with an easy-to-use web interface. GoAnywhere lets companies consolidate all their data transmission and processing needs and provides a single point for administration and monitoring. The product works on a variety of platforms and connects a variety of servers, such as FTP, HTTP, e-mail, and database servers. Last but not least, GoAnywhere encrypts and compresses data, making for secure and faster transmissions.

— Linda Harty, web strategic editor

Posted by lharty on March 30, 2008 at 9:26 PM | Comments (0)

2008 Innovation Awards Announced at COMMON

At the opening session on Sunday afternoon, Randy Dufault, COMMON president, and Mark Shearer, IBM vice president of Marketing and Offerings for the Business Systems Division, presented the 2008 Innovation Awards.

The two winners in the small- and midsized-business (fewer than 1,000 employees) innovation category were Heartland Co-op, of Iowa, and Specialty Pipe and Tube, Inc., of Ohio. In the large enterprise business innovation category, the two winners were Landstar Systems, of Texas, and FedEx Corporate Services, of Pennsylvania. The final category, education excellence innovation, had one winner: University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

— Linda Harty, web strategic editor

Posted by lharty on March 30, 2008 at 6:21 PM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2008 9:24 AM

What's your favorite dinosaur?

So lately, I've been reading a lot of press releases that refer to RPG as an outdated dinosaur. Honestly, I've never gotten that impression based on the content that we publish in the magazine or online. Seems like we are always talking about RPG this or that. And in fact, I believe that Scott Klement's RPG Rules was one of the readers' favorite articles from last year. So, what gives? Why are product-producers so keen to move people away from RPG and toward a completely different skill set?

A recent article by Chris Smith from MC Press,

"Reliability and Simplicity Will Continue to Define the System i,"

in which Smith interviews IBM's manager of IBM's Power Systems Division, Ian Jarman, offers the following tidbit:

As to the future of RPG, Jarman acknowledges it is a 'specialty language' in the eyes of younger IT professionals, but knowing RPG can be a great asset for a young programmer who also has Web 2.0 skills.

And so I come upon one of KrengelTech's newest products, RPG-XML, a collection of RPG service programs that users can call right from an RPG program on the System i. The tool set helps RPG programmers use XML by composing and parsing documents and transmitting XML to remote business partners. So, companies can use their existing skill sets of RPG to produce and consume web services. But to be honest, I haven't run across too many products like this one.

So, my question is this: if RPG is so great and flexible and well-liked in the community, why are most of the new products moving away from it? Is something new, like solutions that use Java, necessarily something better? Are there lots of old-school languages that are falling out of favor with vendors but are still favorites with today's programmers?

Posted by ebradford on March 19, 2008 at 9:24 AM | Comments (1)

March 5, 2008 8:28 AM

Send Us Your Thoughts and Your Product News, Too

Although the Product Guy has left the building, we promise to keep you posted on what's happening in the System i marketplace. Third-party products are just as pertinent to the System i as the i5/OS operating system because if you don't have an application to track shipments, tabulate sales, or inventory your stock, what would you do with the server?

(Hmmm. I've seen a trebuchet toss computers at the da Vinci Days festival in Corvallis, Oregon, but that's another blog, and I'm sure no one would ever think of doing THAT to a System i.)

We could never replace John Ghrist's unique and often humorous ruminations on the System i marketplace, but NEWS editors will work the telephones and their keyboards to inform you of all the new and improved products available to run on our readers' favorite operating system, as well as any trends that might be developing in the market. Heck, they might even go so far as to give you their perspective on or analysis of a situation.

We've divided the System i industry into five "beats" (we are journalists -- this isn't the 60s) that we've assigned to each of five editors who will check in with vendors from time to time to find out whether there are any trends on tap in their market or with their customers, whether they have a new or upgraded product release to share, or whether they just have something on their mind about anything System i in general.

The information our editors gather will appear here in the Product Lines blog in our NEWS Daily newsletter and also in System iNEWS magazine.

We invite you to send any press releases about news or product information you might have to us at pressreleases@systeminetwork.com. You can also contact the subject-matter editors directly if you have something you'd like to talk to them about.

They are:

• Cindy Bushong: RPG/CL (cindy.bushong AT penton.com)


• Linda Harty: Security, Networking/Connectivity (linda.harty AT penton.com)


• Vicki Hamende: Database, Application Development (Other Languages) (vicki.hamende AT penton.com)


• Erin Bradford: Systems Management (erin.bradford AT penton.com)


• Rita-Lyn Sanders: General (rita.sanders AT penton.com)

We'll be chatting with you soon!

-- Rita-Lyn Sanders, senior industry & products editor

Posted by rsanders on March 5, 2008 at 8:28 AM | Comments (0)