New software unveiled by Aldon last week allows IBM i developers to manage and monitor the code deployment process from any location–even the neighborhood pub. Thanks to new Web portal and mobile device user interfaces unveiled by the Rocket Software subsidiary, many of the administrative tasks that previously required a 5250 green-screen interface can now be handled in a friendly Web GUI, or even on the go from an iPhone or Android device.

The new functions delivered in Aldon Web Portal Plus should make life easier for harried development managers, who are constantly worried whether the rollout of code changes

A lot of people would say that government organizations lag behind private industry when it comes to efficiency. But here is some evidence that in the IT arena that may not be true. It also goes to show that the IBM midrange community is not necessarily mired in the past. Let’s take a quick look at one of the largest IBM i-based clouds in North America, where governmental organizations using SunGard Public Sector’s NaviLine software is being protected by Maxava disaster recovery and high availability software.

SunGard has a specific division referred to as SunGard Public Sector that serves primarily

Tributary Systems, a developer of storage virtualization software for IBM i and z/OS systems, unveiled a tightened partnership with storage hardware provider Quantum last week. Under the new partnership, Tributary will be selling Quantum’s DXi-Series line of data de-duplication appliances, as well as its Scalar line of tape libraries, into its IBM i and z/OS customer bases. The DXi-Series deal will provide Tributary a solid platform upon which to build virtual tape library (VTL) solutions.

Tributary Systems is a Bedford, Texas, company that has a long history developing storage technology for minicomputers and mainframes. In 2009, Tributary entered the

RJS Software Systems last week unveiled a new release of SignHere, a software product that allows users to apply a digitally captured signature to an electronic document, including those originating from IBM i systems. The new release of SignHere brings better integration with RJS’ own content management system, support for new signature capture hardware, and improved customization options for the end user.

RJS introduced SignHere last year to help bridge the divide between paper documents and digital documents. When a document, such as an invoice or a bill of lading, requires a signature, the RJS software automatically applies a digitally

Organizations eager to connect their new PHP applications with their existing IBM i data and programs may be interested to know that Shield Advanced Solutions is the new North American distributor for the Easycom software from the French developer AURA Equipments. Easycom was previously the IBM i-to-PHP integration glue that shipped with Zend Technologies‘s PHP stack, until it was replaced with the open source XML Toolkit, creating a minor controversy.

The new XML Toolkit takes over integration tasks like making RPG program calls accessing DB2/400 data. It’s been available as a beta since Zend Server 5.1 for IBM

Developers and end-users alike will benefit from a new saved search function announced by mrc last week. The new feature in its m-Power development tool will allow users to quickly pull up complicated searches, specific views of reports, and other previously defined views in their Web applications. It will also save time for developers.

Programmers are always looking for a faster way to write applications, and users of mrc’s m-Power rapid application development tool are no different. The tool already gives developers a leg up on the application creation front, by virtue of how it works, which is by generating

Cyber-Ark Software has extended its managed file transfer (MFT) solution to the cloud. Its new Inter-Business Vault as a Service, unveiled two weeks ago, starts at $1,900 per month.

Cyber-Ark serves a variety of data security needs with its Digital Vault, a proprietary Windows-based application that’s designed to be an impenetrable silo. All communication with the Digital Vault is handled through its proprietary “vault protocol,” and is encrypted and extensively logged.

The Digital Vault provides the foundation for several Inter-Business Vault (IBV) solutions, ranging from password and user session management to MFT. The company’s MFT solution supports the company’s proprietary

Symtrax yesterday unveiled a new version of StarQuery, its business intelligence software that’s often used in IBM i environments. StarQuery version 4 introduces two big features, including in-memory processing for faster report retrieval, and the capability to retrieve data from multiple databases at the same time.

StarQuery is a Microsoft Windows-based BI tool unveiled by Symtrax in late 2003 as a replacement for its XL400 product. The core components of the StarQuery suite include a data mapping engine called MapDesigner that’s used to create user-specific views of a database (DB2/400 quite often); a runtime component and multi-dimensional database; an Excel

Hubspan is augmenting its cloud-based B2B data exchange platform with an invoicing solution called SnapShot for Invoice. The solution, which is sold as an add-on to its core trading system, automatically renders PDF images of electronic invoices during the B2B integration process.

Hubspan’s flagship trading platform, called the WebSpan SaaS Integration Platform, is a next-generation hosted EDI solution that helps simplify the tedious task of connecting buyers, sellers, and other participants in various industrial and commercial supply chains. The service automates various EDI-type tasks, including message translation, data validation, choreography, activity monitoring, and multi-party routing. It supports all types of

JD Edwards and Infor ERP shops are among the customers that are being served by a new partnership between data integration and business process providers Stone Bond Technologies and K2.

K2 develops the BlackPearl suite of Microsoft-centric suite of business process management (BPM) and workflow tools. K2 has extended BlackPearl to several popular ERP environments by way of Stone Bond, which develops the Enterprise Enabler suite of tools for managing, federating, virtualization, and integration enterprise data.

By virtue of the integration with Enterprise Enabler, K2’s customers can now use BlackPearl to build process-driven applications and workflows that hook