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| Bullish on Blades – But Customers Hard to Find |
| According
to Mark Shearer, vice president of marketing for IBM Business Systems,
ninety percent of System i clients can fit on a POWER6-based blade.
While it seems there’s an audience and interest in i blades has been
high, sales are very low. To understand why this is happening, System
iNetwork blogger Chris Maxcer spoke with Stan Staszak, director of
System i/x products for Sirius, and IBM Premier Business Partner.
“We’ve been struggling to find the ideal customer or the perfect fit
for the new blades,” says Staszak. “Ideally it would be a customer who
already has the BladeCenter H chassis. Optimally you’d also want the
customer to have either the DS4000 or DS8000 [series] external storage
server. The challenge is, that’s a really small subset of our
customers. I’m sure those customers are out there and exist, but they
also have to have the overlap of being an i-based shop.” Read More |
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| ASNA Releases Monarch 4.0 System i and RPG Modernization Solution |
| ASNA
recently announced the release of a revolutionary version of its
Monarch modernization solution, for those who wish to expand or migrate
their green screen and web-faced RPG applications to the growing
Microsoft .NET Framework. Monarch 4.0 analyzes and migrates RPG III/ILE
RPG and CL programs, Display and Print files, and optionally, System i
DB2 data, to Microsoft's .NET Framework and SQL Server, and represents
a major upgrade to Monarch. Other notable enhancements include support
for .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, enhanced migration agent
for migrating System i DB2 files to Microsoft SQL Server, support for
automatically migrating embedded SQL code, RPG cycle support for print
programs and improved RPG sub-file migration features, including
folding sub-files. "Monarch 4.0's support enables System i users to
expand and modernize their applications to use Microsoft technologies.
This will enable greater flexibility to create applications that meet
current and future needs," said Jay Roxe, product manager with
Microsoft Corp. Read More |
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| Safestone Launches New Smart Security Console to Enable System i Compliance Reporting |
| Safestone
recently announced their DetectIT Smart Security Console, a new
easy-to-deploy solution for delivering System i security and compliance
reports in order to meet regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, PCI, HIPAA
and Basel II. “Organizations today are being forced to rapidly embrace
security management initiatives without the necessary expertise and
resources,” said John Todd, CEO of Safestone. “DetectIT Smart Security
Console has been designed to meet the demand for simplified System i
security and compliance reporting which can be used by nontechnical
staff, relieving the burden from the IT department.” The console can
reduce PCI compliance risks by allowing an auditor to see which users
attempted to access what files, when and from where, and only focuses
on critical security events, automatically filtering from thousands of
pages of raw data. Other modules included in the DetectIT Security
Manager are a risk and compliance monitor, security audit and
detection, network traffic controller, user profile manager, password
self help and multiple systems administrator. Read More |
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| Become a System i-vangelist: Promote What You Love |
| When
was the last time you saw an ad on TV for the System i? If you’re like
me, you may have never seen one! In a recent article on
SystemiNetwork.com, Jeff Carey explains how we, the i community, just
might have to spread the love ourselves. So how do you do this? By
becoming a System i-vangelist. Carey suggests you first show your i
spirit by knowing your stuff – when someone asks about the System i,
don’t just tell them it’s great! Do a little research so you know the
history and story of the IBM i. Carey also suggests switching to the
new terminology, joining forums and user groups like COMMON, and
training so you speak the same language as other i professionals.
Finally, discuss your i experience with everyone you know – talk with
your IT department, your boss, the community – just keep the
conversation going. “As an i devotee, you live in changing times,” says
Carey. “All you hold dear is being realigned, but there is still hope.
You know the way to a better computing tomorrow. Don’t keep it a
secret.” Read More |
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| COMMON Survey Reveals Top Concerns for the System i |
| COMMON
Europe’s annual “Top Concerns” survey was recently tallied, and for the
first time, the survey included responses from around the globe. The
survey, which enables the global community to better understand member
priorities and to find solutions to technology concerns, found that
“improving IT security and continuity,” and “satisfying internal
customers” are the most important concerns to worldwide System i users.
Other concerns listed as highly important included doing fast
application development to fulfill business needs, keeping skills
current for the existing staff, and treating data security and
confidentiality as business risks. The other main concern? “Make
management understand the value of System i.” Read More |
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| IBM Says Color Me Even Green-er |
| IBM’s
Project Big Green was launched in May 2000; committing $1 billion per
year to deliver technologies that help customers increase the level of
energy efficiency in their data centers. A variety of hardware,
software and service technologies have been developed since that time,
with the newest being the "Software for a Greener World" initiative, to
help organizations optimize their infrastructure, workloads, and people
for greater energy efficiency. According to the press release, “IBM’s
strategy focuses on three key areas of software: the use of online
tools such as collaboration to reduce the necessity of travel;
workloads and the efficiencies gained by improved business processes
and automation to increase power efficiency, and infrastructure
maintenance and redesign to consolidate and virtualize IT, monitor
energy usage, and shift resources to maximize efficiency based on
demand.” Read More |
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| MKS Earns High Scores in Independent Evaluation |
| MKS
Inc’s ALM solution recently earned the highest score in an evaluation
of requirements management tools by Forrester Research. "In an upset,
the three year-old requirements management capabilities in MKS's ALM
solution turned in the highest current offering score in our
evaluation" declared Forrester. "The product includes outstanding
support for Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel as requirements input
mechanisms and superior support for requirements reuse (both core
requirements management capabilities) in addition to great strength in
security, workflow, and reporting (all typical capabilities of an ALM
solution)." MKS Integrity provides a next generation requirements
management solution for organizations who are suffering with quality
and time to market issues stemming from poor and ever-changing
requirements. Read More |
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| Profound Logic Unveils Genie Accelerator |
| Profound
Logic recently announced its latest feature for Genie, its
on-the-fly-green-screen modernization tool. The newest update, the
Genie Accelerator, increases performance by eliminating the need for
5250 online transaction processing. Now, Genie allows users to run
their web-enabled systems without using any interactive CPW. All
applications that run under the Genie Accelerator will run entirely in
batch, eliminating the need for expensive 5250 OLTP and unlocking the
full processing power of the system for 5250 applications. "The
elimination of interactive CPW makes modernization much more affordable
for businesses," comments David Russo, Project Manager at Profound
Logic, "With the Genie Accelerator, users do not have to worry about
upgrading their systems or buying a more powerful box to
modernize." Read More |
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