System iNetwork

April 2009

April 28, 2009 7:16 PM

BCD Releases New Versions, Expands Features in its IBM i Product Line

Business Computer Design (BCD) is one of the vendors at COMMON Reno that announced it continues to invest in its IBM i product line. BCD made sweeping enhancements to many of the components that form its application modernization suite.

The enhancements include:

Catapult 7. A new release of Catapult, a PC and IBM i client/server application for automated report and document distribution, has been rewritten in Visual #C.NET, resulting in increased performance-- up to15 times faster. The rewrite takes advantage of modern controls and interfaces in C# that, for example, improved the email process. It also has been completely redesigned with a modern and intuitive user interface and a new Grab Rule Editor that improves the process flow when creating new distribution rules.

Clover 1.6. Clover, BCD’s real-time IBM i web reporting and querying tool, now has the ability to import query definitions from IBM DB2 Web Query for i. The Web Query definitions can be output as real-time web reports, graphs, spreadsheets, or interactive drill downs with optional prompts and filters, bringing new life to existing reports defined in IBM’s query tool. The following query options are all retained: selected fields, file joins, calculated fields, sort fields, comparisons and level breaks. You can further customize and modify the imported queries in the Clover IDE with the codeless SQL wizard. End users can access reports from a browser; no other PC software is required.

Presto 1.27. Presto now supports IBM i 5.1 and higher. Additionally, there is an option to run Presto without needing to install the WebSphere Application Server.

Nexus Portal 3.6. Version 3.6 of Nexus, BCD’s portal for secure and controlled access to enterprise information, is due to be generally available the end of May. This version has many new features, including a Google Search Appliance portlet that lets Nexus users search any network drives they index with the Google Appliance, in addition to the documents in the Nexus ECM. Besides users accessing all their documents from one location, they also get full text searching and search result text previews. Nexus 3.6 also offers performance improvements.

WebSmart PHP. WebSmart PHP’s built-in change management has added support for the FTP path to offer a more complete process. This enhancement automatically directs new content and makes it easier to publish, manage, and organize content on your website.

WebSmart ILE 8. The next version of WebSmart ILE, BCD’s rapid web application development tool, will be generally available June 1. It adds support for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), letting users create connections to different LDAP data sources and manage entries in those sources. It also includes new XML functions that simplify XML document processing and parsing. These functions let users open an XML document, parse the document into a tree, retrieve elements and their children, get sets and subsets of elements, traverse the document tree, and more. The functions also handle all memory management behind the scenes, so developers can focus on writing applications.

--Rita-Lyn Sanders, Senior Industry Editor, Programming & Systems Management

Posted by rsanders on April 28, 2009 at 7:16 PM | Comments (0)

Raz-Lee Enhances IBM i Security Solution's GUI

I got a chance to meet Raz-Lee Security Inc.'s husband-and-wife team of Shmuel and Milka Zailer on the expo floor during COMMON. Shmuel is the company's CEO/CTO, and Milka is its CFO/COO. Not only did I meet them, but I also got to sit in on Shmuel's COMMON session on Monday morning, "Tracking Application Activity via the DB-Journal; the Missing Dimension of Information Systems."

The company's main announcement at COMMON is of a major new GUI release of the iSecurity suite of System i Security solutions. Some of the highlights of this new release are:

• Preliminary access filter for data retrieval, reducing network load and reducing response time
• Drill-down capability from the Visualizer BI tool to the firewall or audit log, enabling specific event analysis down to the log-entry level
• Role-based navigation tree providing auditors with only the tree items they require
• Standard reports opened directly as GUI tables, with advanced Eclipse features for table management, including exporting directly to spreadsheet
• Reports stored in IFS as PC format files, opened directly in CSV, PDF, HTML formats
• SYSLOG supported in Audit and Action menus
• GUI support for Audit, Action, and Capture expanded

Also on display at Raz-Lee's booth were three of the company's other security offerings:

• Compliance Evaluator - gives managers a quick, comprehensive view of their system's compliance with industry and corporate policies and provides reports with various levels of detail.
• Authority on Demand - provides a solution for emergency access to critical application data and processes.
• AP-Journal - protects business-critical information from insider threats and from external security breaches. It issues realtime alerts on changes to data, records read, and open actions, and provides timeline reports on all changes over long periods of time.

For more information, visit razlee.com.

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

Posted by lharty on April 28, 2009 at 5:16 PM | Comments (0)

Vendors Invest in IBM i--News from the COMMON Expo Floor

It's clear to me from the number of IBM i announcements coming from vendors demoing their products on the expo floor at COMMON Reno 2009 that they're making significant investments in the IBM platform.

And the really cool thing is that many of those investments aren't just for today. Software vendors are doing more than maintaining their applications for customers. I've talked to software vendors that are so enthusiastic about the platform that they can barely contain themselves.

I've learned about re-writes of entire applications; major releases with money-saving, automation efficiencies; and the incorporation of cool technologies like PHP. I'll share them with you a few at a time.

Here's a start:

In the education arena, Profound Logic has launched Profound Logic TV, a blog dedicated to providing YouTube-based videos and tips for the IBM i community. The blog and website contain articles and videos focused on the latest trends, ideas, and technologies surrounding application development and modernization on IBM i. There is also opportunity for viewer interaction. The first three videos on the site cover AJAX on IBM i. Each is three to five minutes in length.

"It's an opportunity to introduce people to web development and modernization and what it's about," says Philip Roestamadji, marketing director for Profound Logic. "We're not trying to push concepts on TV, we're trying to explain concepts."

The company plans to release a new video on the website every two weeks, and hopes to offer videos from people outside Profound Logic as well as within.

Also in application development, Aldon and Business Computer Design (BCD) are partnering to bring process automation and efficiency to web application development and modernization projects involving PHP and RPG-CGI. The companies have integrated Aldon Lifecycle Manager, a change management solution, with BCD's WebSmart ILE and WebSmart PHP products for IBM i and multi-platform web development. The integrated solution provides automated processes and deployment, inventory management, project and compliance reporting, and increased visibility into project status. "Customers want a single solution to manage their environments," says Dan Magid, Aldon's product strategist.

"As we watch the open source, multi-platform, and IBM i worlds merge, it's important to make sure process doesn't fall by the wayside," says Matt Scholl, CEO and president of Aldon. "We're excited to work with BCD."

--Rita-Lyn Sanders, Senior Industry Editor, Programming & Systems Management

Posted by rsanders on April 28, 2009 at 9:19 AM | Comments (0)

April 27, 2009 6:26 PM

Quadrant Software Announces New Release of Doc Management Solution at COMMON

I met with Quadrant Software's director of marketing, Daniel Kuperman, on the COMMON expo floor today and learned about FastFax, Formtastic, and IntelliChief. FastFax lets IBM i shops send out purchase orders, invoices, and other business documents via fax and integrates with email. Formtastic is an electronic forms package that eliminates the need for preprinted forms—the forms are printed along with the data that populates them—reducing the cost of creating and distributing documents. IntelliChief is a document management, archival, and workflow solution. All three products integrate with each other and comprise a paperless process management solution, allowing for electronic purchasing, receiving, and paying.

Kuperman explained the new capabilities that IntelliChief 2.5 includes. Here are highlights of a few of them:

Performance metrics. From the moment a document is created or captured up to when it is distributed or archived, IntelliChief is tracking it. How many orders have been fulfilled? How long did it take to fill them? Has an invoice been approved? All this information is recorded in a history table, and version 2.5 lets users run reports against it, for example, to compare last year's orders with this year's.

Matching of workflow documents. When a document enters workflow, IntelliChief verifies whether other documents are waiting for a match and determines if they can now be routed to their final destination. This new workflow feature saves time and adds intelligence to document processing, instead of relying on manual user intervention.

Enhanced web form usage. IntelliChief's WebForm module lets users use a browser to create and fill out a form, such as a purchase order. Version 2.5 enhances the form so that users can re-edit it, instead of having to reenter the original data or re-create the form from scratch, before it's finalized and approved. When the web form is complete, it is stored in the archive as an image document, preventing future edits.

Other improvements include:

• Improved notifications
• Viewer improvements for handling multiple documents
• Document attachment options
• Hardware and software updates (support for MS Server 2008 and MS SQL 2008)

Kuperman asked me what my "beats" are in the IBM i world, and when I mentioned availability, he told me of another advantage inherent in the IntelliChief solution:

"Most disaster recovery solutions focus on the hardware, but what they don't consider is the paper. If you have a disaster, for example a flooded office, what happens to your file cabinets? If, instead of paper, you have your documents in electronic format—such as IntelliChief—you have all your documents electronically accessible from anywhere if a disaster occurs, because they're part of your HA/DR system."

On top of that, Kuperman added, when it comes time for a compliance audit, a document management solution puts everything that an auditor might ask you for at your fingertips.

IntelliChief 2.5 is free to existing IntelliChief customers. For more information, visit IntelliChief.com, email sales@quadrantsoftware.com, or visit booth #302 during the COMMON expo this week.

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

Posted by lharty on April 27, 2009 at 6:26 PM | Comments (0)

Newcomer to IBM i Storage Space Can Speed Up Your Backups and More

I visited with Ed Ahl, vice president of sales and marketing for Gresham Storage, at the COMMON expo. Ahl tells me that this is Gresham's first COMMON. The company is a long-time maker of storage devices for other spaces, such as TSM and pSeries, and has recently entered the IBM i space with a product called Clareti Storage Director (Clareti SD). Ahl says that Clareti SD accelerates the backup and recovery process and provides reliability and security. With the Clareti SD, the backup window is maintained or even decreased, and the expense of acquiring additional tape assets can be avoided. And the product offers seamless integration and optimization of tape assets and distributed or consolidated backup targets.

In addition to speeding up your backup performance, Ahl says the Clareti SD offers other benefits: connectivity, consolidation, remote replication, and cost reduction.

Connectivity. In a traditional i system environment, one physical tape drive is attached to one i system because the tape drives lack the bandwidth to make connecting to multiple physical drives worthwhile. With the Clareti SD, multiple virtual tape drives can receive backup data over the same Fibre Channel connection, taking better advantage of the bandwidth so that several backup jobs can run simultaneously.

Consolidation. The Clareti SD eliminates the need for a 1:1 ratio of i systems to physical tape drives and instead supports multiple i systems or LPARs with one physical library by using virtual libraries and tape drives. Physical hardware requirements are reduced by using shared physical components available to all the systems.

Remote tape replication. Instead of creating and storing duplicate backups and taking them to an offsite vault, the Clareti SD enables virtual tapes to be copied over the WAN to another set of virtual tapes presented by another Clareti SD, thereby strengthening a business's disaster recovery plan—not to mention saving money by reducing the need for tape storage.

Cost reduction. Naturally, increased performance and connectivity, as well as consolidation and remote replication save you time and money.

For more information, visit greshamstorage.com, email info@greshamstorage.com, call 800-450-0575, or stop by booth #223 if you're at COMMON this week.

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

Posted by lharty on April 27, 2009 at 1:06 PM | Comments (0)

At IBM i Conference, BOSaNOVA Announces Name Change to 10ZiG Technology

Here at the IBM i event of the year, COMMON, I had a chance to chat with two BOSaNOVA folks about the company's name change, announced today. The new name is 10ZiG Technology and comes with a snazzy new logo, which I'm including here. Marketing director Jennifer Phillips says, "As we expand in the server-based computing, desktop virtualization, and security markets, we wanted to create a fresh brand identity reflective of our company's core strategy. Our name now focuses on what we stand for—going above and beyond for our customers. The name 10ZiG comes from Tenzig (also translated Tenzing) Norgay who was the knowledgeable guide who directed Edmund Hillary on the voyage to become the first two people to climb Mt. Everest. We like to think of ourselves as guides within our own market who do everything we can to educate customers. We focus on what we do best, offering quality solutions, personalized attention and great customer support."

Martin Pladgeman, president of 10ZiG, explains that BOSaNOVA was originally a subsidiary of BOS and then became a private company in 2003 and decided to use the name BOSaNOVA. "These days, BOS is doing RFID products, and we're doing thin clients, security products, and desktop virtualization products. We're not distributing BOS products anymore, so we wanted to make sure that there would be no confusion. We borrowed the BOS identity for a while, and now we want to stand on our own."

Pladgeman adds, "Over the years the BOSaNOVA name has been synonymous with reliability, outstanding support, and quality products. We're doing everything possible to make sure the name change is seamless to the end user. They will continue to get the same quality products and top notch support that they have come to expect from us."

10ZiG's new website is 10zig.com. The Q3 site, theq3.com, will not be affected.

No change in ownership, management, or staff has occurred. For questions or more information on the name change, contact 10ZiG Technology at 866-865-5250, send e-mail to info@10zig.com, or if you're at COMMON this week, stop by the 10ZiG booth (#303) at the expo April 27 or 28.

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

Posted by lharty on April 27, 2009 at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)

April 24, 2009 4:07 PM

SaaS for DR Offers Turnkey Solution for 24x7 Uptime for IBM i Shops

I recently chatted with Simon O'Sullivan, senior vice president of New Zealand–based Maximum Availability, and Timothy Roe, director of sales and marketing of U.S.-based Network Services Plus, Inc. (NSPI), about the companies' announcement of a partnership. Maximum Availability creates high availability/disaster recovery (HA/DR) software replication solutions, including the *noMAX suite of products. NSPI is a provider of technology services.

O'Sullivan explains that the collaboration allows Maximum Availability to leverage NSPI's remote IBM i hosting capabilities and provide customers with access to the *noMAX HA and business continuity (BC) solutions on a Software as a Service (SaaS) basis. In addition to providing direct customers a new SaaS option, the partnership will also provide the foundation for NSPI and Maximum Availability to expand IBM i ISVs to deliver a customized business continuity solution for their customers. The ISV partnerships provide an option for ISV customers and for ISVs themselves to grow their business with incremental service offerings.

"We think the next decade is going to be the decade of the data center," O'Sullivan asserts. "A lot of sites, when they're looking at HA/DR, realize they need top of the line. So we thought it important to partner with a top-of-the-line data center. The offering is on a subscription basis, so that the customer doesn't have to worry about purchasing the software, the hardware they'll replicate through, the site with hurricane proofing and earthquake proofing--because all that is already there. The customer can replicate straight to a data center. It's a service model for DR. And a key part of that is the data center."

NSPI's Roe adds, "We’re excited about the partnership with Maximum Availability. With Maximum Availability, we are able to deliver an end-to-end HA/DR solution for a monthly service payment that can adjust as a customer's business needs change."

O'Sullivan says that in the worldwide i market, there are approximately 200,000 businesses using the i, and the machine is typically a critical one--one that runs in the back office and has the critical information on it. "Of those 200,000 customers," O'Sullivan elaborates, "probably about 90 percent still use tape, so the model has been to back up your system to tape and then to send the tape offsite, perhaps even to a data center, where they put it in a vault." O'Sullivan says that setup has two problems: (1) It takes time to rebuild the environment--perhaps two or three days. (2) By the time the environment is rebuilt, the tape data is four or five days old. So then all the information generated by the business during the interim has to be manually keyed in.

"Today, three to four days of downtime is unacceptable. A lot of companies would say even two to four hours is too much downtime." O'Sullivan goes on to explain that up till now, business that want zero downtime have basically done their HA/DR setup themselves. They might have two locations and replicate between them, or they might replicate to another part of their building. "That model will continue to be successful," O'Sullivan allows, "but what's the next step? We think the next step will be customers who want to replicate into a data center but don't want to go through the whole process in-house. It's a move to SaaS for HA/DR in the i space."

"This partnership positions NSPI quite uniquely as both a reseller of the standalone *noMAX product and our SaaS product," concludes O'Sullivan. "They have an impressive data center in Atlanta and staff that are already fully certified on *noMAX and the System i, so we're hitting the ground running."

For more information about Maximum Availability and NSPI, as well as the new offerings the partnership enables the companies to provide, visit maxava.com or nspi.com.

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

Posted by lharty on April 24, 2009 at 4:07 PM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2009 3:32 PM

Happenings in the i Space: Company News Roundup

There's a lot happening in the i market! Here's a roundup of some news coming from various companies in my beats, which include security, availability, and networking/connectivity.

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

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Vision Solutions User Group Formed in Russia

Vision Solutions, Inc., a high availability (HA) and disaster recovery

(DR) solutions provider, has formed an independent user group in Russia. The group, comprised of local customers and business partners, encourages the exchange of best practices and cutting-edge technological information. The user group will provide Vision Solutions with useful information to assist in future HA technology development and help influence market direction throughout the region. For more information, contact Alexander Trekin at +44 7920 026 185 or Alexander.Trekin@visionsolutions.com.

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Patrick Townsend Debuts Alliance Key Manager and Weekend in Vegas Sweepstakes

This spring, Patrick Townsend Security Solutions (PTSS) is exhibiting at two tradeshows: RSA Expo 2009 (booth 2646) and the COMMON Annual Meeting & Expo (booth 621). The big news for PTSS at the RSA Expo 2009 is the company's Alliance Key Manager solution. Slated for release in Q3, Alliance Key Manager will provide enterprise customers, VARs, and ISVs with a method of managing symmetric encryption keys for their data security applications running on any enterprise platform.

PTSS will also be conducting its Q2 Vegas Weekend Sweepstakes during both tradeshows. Attendees will have the chance to win a weekend for two at the Venetian Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Entry will be open only to expo attendees who have their expo badge scanned at the PTSS booth. The winner will be notified on May 6, 2009. Complete sweepstakes rules are at patownsend.com/vegas.

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Maximum Availability Partnership with NSPI Widens Access to HA/DR Solution

Maximum Availability, a New Zealand–based maker of IBM i HA software, announces its partnership with U.S.-based Network Services Plus, Inc. (NSPI), a provider of technology services. The agreement establishes NSPI as a key sales, implementation, and support partner in the U.S. The collaboration allows Maximum Availability to exploit NSPI's remote IBM i hosting capabilities, providing customers with access to the *noMAX HA/BC solutions on a Software as a Service (SaaS) basis.

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nuBridges Product Wins 2009 "Tomorrow's Technology Today" Award

nuBridges, Inc., announces that Info Security Products Guide, a publication about security-related products and technologies, has named its nuBridges Protect software solution a winner of the 2009 "Tomorrow's Technology Today" award. nuBridges Protect, with its multi-platform encryption features that secure sensitive and confidential information, was selected based on the evolving role of new technologies that are making the most positive impact on security in today's highly sophisticated and blended attacks environment.

Posted by lharty on April 20, 2009 at 3:32 PM | Comments (0)

Reader's Choice: Hawkeye/Pathfinder

Lee Yarrington, a senior i5 developer as well as a Forum Pro at SystemiNetwork.com, submits this Reader's Choice nomination. Thanks, Lee!

Not speaking on behalf of the company I work for, only personally as a developer, I would offer the following:

Of all the products that I have used throughout my 15 years as a developer, my Reader's Choice recommendation has to be Hawkeye/Pathfinder as a developer tool. As long as the setup is completed correctly, this product has been invaluable to my career and always among my recommendations of software for companies to have that I worked for as either a contractor or employee.

From research/analysis options for object X-Ref, field X-Ref, and Spacing Charts for developers to options that can make administrators work more efficient as well within the Added Time Savers including Objects Last Used, Disk Changes, and Unreferenced Source. A few years ago, I realized just how vital this product was for my work: When HAWKEYE wasn't initially enabled for DBCS, my efficiency was reduced and manual processes had to be used to gather information that is available quickly within HAWKEYE, but thankfully, HAWKEYE DBCS enablement was introduced.

For those sites I worked with for Y2K analysis--those that had this product--the analysis and development for solutions for Y2K was done more efficiently.

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

****Reader's Choice is a System iNEWS/System iNetwork feature that lets nonbiased readers (no vendor employees, please) offer feedback on products and services that have helped them. If you'd like to recommend a product that you've used to solve actual problems, save an enterprise money, or simplify a process, we--and our readers--want to know about it. To submit your recommendation of 500 words or less, email it to us at editors@systeminetwork.com or post it on our LinkedIn page under the Discussions tab.****

Posted by lharty on April 20, 2009 at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)

April 13, 2009 3:29 PM

Intelligent Backup: An Easy Way to Protect Your Data

I had a quick visit with Tom Pojatina, channel manager for LXI Enterprise Storage, to learn about an IBM i product that helps simplify backups and recoveries. Tom told me about LXI Media Management System (LXI MMS). Tom says that LXI MMS "is simplified intelligent backup recovery. That's what differentiates us. Our goal is to ensure that what is on the system is on tape."

It's not uncommon for a tape to get deleted from a database of backups, and that's what LXI has designed the intelligent recovery for. "If someone overwrites a tape, MMS is intelligent enough to re-back up that data for you," Tom states.

"It's an automatic, user-free backup," Tom elaborates, "so it eliminates the need for backup program maintenance. When you do the restore, we have a one-command custom recovery that you can set up, so we automate your recovery process. We completely automate the recovery by building your recovery lists automatically and performing the second restore for anything that wasn't restored initially, including restoring logicals and physicals in the right order." LXI MMS also has recovery reporting.

LXI MMS was upgraded when IBM i 6.1 was released and is currently at version 5.6.1. Here are some of the product highlights:

For backup management:

• Intelligent backup
• Completely automated backup with no user interaction required
• Automatic determination of what needs to be backed up
• Automatic determination of what type of backup to do--full or cumulative
• Assurance that everything needed for recovery is on tape

For recovery management:

• Automated recoveries can be started with a single LXI command
• No need for recovery program maintenance
• User can define recovery lists and prioritize recovery

For more information about LXI MMS, visit lxi.com.

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

Posted by lharty on April 13, 2009 at 3:29 PM | Comments (0)