When IBM‘s new Power5-based i5 servers (formerly iSeries) ship next month, users will be exposed for the first time to strange new “on demand” technologies, such as the Virtualization Engine, support for up to 10 partitions per processor, and “weighted priority” for partitions with automatic processor and memory balancing. With products like Midrange Performance Group‘s Performance Navigator, announced this week, users will be able to see how their particular workloads will run on the new i5 boxes.

The new i5 servers and the new release of OS/400, called i5/OS V5R3, announced today, feature new virtualization and on-demand technologies

Profound Logic Software launched its integrated development environment (IDE) for RPG-based Web applications, called RPG Smart Pages (RPGsp), at the spring 2003 COMMON conference. This week, at the spring 2004 COMMON conference in San Antonio, Texas, the company will be talking about its experiences over the last year, and promoting an updated version of RPGsp that it says makes Web development for RPG programmers even faster.

With RPGsp, Profound Logic sought to eliminate the hassle of using two separate code editors–one for RPG and one for HTML–when developing RPG-based Web apps, while providing a speedy CGI-based runtime environment that uses

With today’s shrinking backup windows and new government regulations mandating certain data storage processes, keeping close tabs on backup tapes is more important than ever, yet more complicated as well. LXI, a developer of backup software for iSeries, Unix, Linux, and Windows, last week launched OffStor, a new off-site, PC-based media management appliance designed to give organizations more visibility and control over the backups they make, regardless of the computer platform.

The key ingredient in the new OffStor appliance is Tape Tracker, LXI’s cross-platform vault management solution, which runs on Windows, Unix, and Linux operating systems. Tape Tracker’s database

JBM Systems is taking its spool management and PDF conversion capabilities to the next level. The Massachusetts company recently launched a suite of document management software, called OctoTools, which combines the company’s PDF conversion capabilities with a new drag-and-drop, Windows-based forms design tool, called OctoDesign. JBM’s iSeries spool file connectivity is still provided through integration with a third-party product.

OS/400 shops looking for an inexpensive solution for replacing their pre-printed forms with electronic documents may want to check out JBM Systems’ newly released OctoTools suite. With a starting price of $2,995, OctoTools can be several times cheaper than other well-known