No disrespect to cavemen, but unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, there’s no way you could have missed the IT industry’s intensifying infatuation with SOA, or service oriented architecture. Like new and revolutionary computing architectures that came before it, SOA is the wonder tonic that promises to cure IT’s troubles, once and for all. Or at least that’s what the vendors say. The problem is, with everybody and his grandmother now riding the SOA bandwagon, the wagon is losing its identity and direction.

In its purest form, SOA refers to a framework for allowing

Asigra this month unveiled a new release of its remote disk-to-disk (D2D) backup solution that offers improved support for the iSeries server. With Televaulting version 6.2, Asigra hopes to persuade multi-site iSeries shops to drop the tape juggling act and make the switch to a network-based backup solution that it claims simplifies and speeds the backup process.

Asigra is a Toronto, Ontario, company that has been developing remote backup products for 20 years. The company previously offered support for AS/400s, but had not kept up with IBM‘s developments until the release of Televaulting version 6.2, which also added support

Lawson Software announced a new release of its M3 (formerly Movex) ERP application suite that addresses performance concerns last week at its annual user conference, held in San Diego. The software giant also outlined its plans for the ERP hosting and software as a service (SaaS) market, added more OEM’ed WebSphere components from IBM into its technology stack, unveiled a new version of Lawson Business Intelligence, and expanded its network of partners, among other announcements.

It’s been a long haul for Lawson and its acquisition of Intentia over the past 18 months. Difficulties in reconciling the two companies’ accounting methods

As is the case in all mergers and acquisitions, the union of Attachmate and WRQ last year resulted in some product overlap. As a result, Attachmate had to make some tough decisions regarding its strategic product for composite application development and service oriented architectures (SOAs). Last month it started shipping Verastream Host Integrator version 6.5, a new release of the WRQ product that’s intended to help bridge the gap for users of Attachmate’s old Synapta product.

A decision was made to standardize Attachmate’s SOA strategy on Verastream, as opposed to the Synapta product that was distributed as part of various

Clothing retailer Pacific Sunwear plans to implement on its iSeries servers a new purchasing system from TradeStone Software that should help it get the best deals for the branded and proprietary goods it purchases from clothing manufacturers and distributors, the companies announced earlier this year.

TradeStone’s J2EE-based software is designed to make users more profitable by giving them the capability to accurately compare the offers received from different manufacturers. The company’s product suite does this by unifying supply chain data points gathered from disparate systems, such as orders, planning, quality tests, and vendor performance; normalizing disparate currencies, languages, and lead

Companies utilizing the latest release of Bytware‘s i5/OS network security software, StandGuard Network Security version 3.0, now have the option of using a graphical user interface (GUI) with the software, the vendor announced last week.

StandGuard Network Security is an exit-point monitoring tool that complements OS/400 and 5250 security by double-checking iSeries access requests originating from users and other systems coming in over FTP, ODBC, and other network access points that bypass OS/400’s olden menu-based security system.

For years, StandGuard Network Security has only been accessible by administrators through a green screen. Now, the Reno, Nevada, company is bolstering

PlayLV Gaming Operations of Las Vegas has installed a new high availability system from Lakeview Technology to ensure that its critical hotel and gambling operations stay online. The company, which operates two Vegas casinos, made the switch from ORION Standard Edition (SE), the former OS Solutions high availability product that Vision Solutions is sunsetting as part of its reorganization following the merger with iTera.

Like many casinos around the country, PlayLV relies on IBM iSeries servers to run software applications that are critical to its operations, including Agilysys Lodging Management System, Infor‘s Infinium financials, and Bally Technologies‘ Casino

Trucking companies that rely on TMW Systems‘ dispatching software may be interested in a new mobile communications product the vendor recently announced, called OnRoute. The new offering, which is based on TMW’s own D2Link technology, uses GPS communications technology from Qualcomm, and installs on Sprint‘s Nextel handsets, is expected to boost communication between drivers and dispatch, while keeping integration and equipment costs down.

Over the years, various methods of connecting truckers with trucking companies’ dispatch centers have been tried, including expensive satellite-based tracking systems and dedicated terminals. While these systems still have their place, especially with long-haul

eBusiness Solution Pros (eSP), the Southern California developer of System i terminal emulators for wireless warehouse environments, has changed its name to evolveIT, the company announced last week.

As eSP, the Tustin, California, company attracted many users of Stay-Linked, a host-based 5250 emulator designed to address many of the problems of dropped radio frequency (RF) connections in busy indoor warehouse environments.

The company decided to change its name from eSP to evolveIT to better reflect the company’s direction, as well as its focus on the IBM System i platform and the need to modernize legacy OS/400 and i5/OS applications.

Future deployments of the i5/OS-based Combank banking solution from Capgemini will feature a modern user interface developed with tools from looksoftware, the Australian iSeries modernization tool vendor announced last week.

Capgemini, the global technology and outsourcing powerhouse, selected looksoftware’s range of modernization tools, including newlook, centric, soarchitect, lookserver, and various interface tools, largely due to the speed of development they afforded, according to a company official.

“Capgemini chose looksoftware to modernize our banking solution because it was clear we could get a superior solution to market faster than the alternatives,” says Sunitha Valtati, Capgemini’s product development manager. “After two