• ‘No Scalability Limits’ Shown with Fiserv Power7 Benchmark

  November 29, 2011 Alex Woodie

  A very impressive benchmark of Fiserv‘s IBM i-based Premiere core banking application was recently conducted at an IBM Innovation Center in San Mateo, California. The relatively low usage of Power7 resources during the test led the companies to conclude that “there’s no known limit to Premier’s scalability.” IBM and Fiserv loaded Premiere on a four-core Power Systems Model 750 platform equipped with solid state drives and rated for 24,000 CPW. In that configuration, Premier was able to support more than 5.1 million online transactions processing (OLTP) per hour (including customer and account inquiries), which is a record for the

  …

  Read more

• Velocity Ramps Up DR Services for Lawson, JDE, and Kronos Customers

  November 29, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Velocity Technology Solutions rolled out new disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity options earlier this month geared toward getting customers’ critical ERP systems back up and running after a disaster even quicker than it could before. The remodeled DR services plan is based largely on Velocity’s recent acquisition of WTS, and is aimed specifically at customers of Oracle-JD Edwards, Infor-Lawson, and Kronos. Velocity is a growing managed services provider (MSP) that has been expanding lately into cloud computing and hosted DR services. In September, the New York City-based company, which has more than 20 years of

  …

  Read more

• Netential Launches an i Cloud Solution for JDE

  November 29, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Netential, a U.K.-based managed service provider (MSP), this month launched Cloud 9, a new IBM i-based cloud offering for running production Oracle JD Edwards World and EnterpriseOne workloads. Under Cloud 9, Netential and its data center partner, Blue Chip , will host, manage, and service customers’ development, test, or production JDE World and JDE EnterpriseOne ERP applications running in an IBM i environment. The World offering is supported up to version A9, and the pay-as-you-go price starts at £2.18 per hour, or about $3.40 per hour. The EnterpriseOne offering is supported up to version 9, and starts at £0.75

  …

  Read more

• Infor to Move HQ to NYC

  November 29, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Next summer, Infor will move its global headquarters from near Atlanta, Georgia, to New York City, the company announced last week. Infor says the move was based in part on the large amount of technology talent in the “Silicon Alley,” and that it plans to hire and house more software engineers and graphic designers in its new location. Infor will move its headquarters from the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta to the island of Manhattan. It will occupy an office at 641 Avenue of the Americas that features an open, loft-style design that “will fuel product innovation by providing an environment

  …

  Read more

• Under Armour Expands Use of ManH’s WMS

  November 29, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Clothes manufacturer Under Armour has adopted Manhattan Associates‘ IBM i-based warehouse management system (WMS) to use in its European operations, the software vendor announced yesterday. Under Armour first implemented Manhattan Associate’s best-of-breed Warehouse Management for IBM i application in 2006 to replace a previous warehousing system that wasn’t working out. The applications (including Extended Enterprise Management and Slotting Optimization) have proven critical to Under Armour’s warehousing operations in Maryland and California. As Under Armour was getting ready to move its European supply chain hub to a new 3PL-run fulfillment center in Venlo, the Netherlands, the company decided to standardize

  …

  Read more

• Starsoft Taps Veryant to Port IBM i COBOL to Open Systems

  November 29, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Starsoft, an Israel-based developer of software for the insurance and financial services industries, is using Veryant technology to help it migrate its COBOL applications to Java and open systems, and to modernize the interfaces, Veryant announced last week. The move will help Starsoft offer solutions that run on server platforms other than IBM i, and bring other benefits, the company says. For more than 20 years, Starsoft has used COBOL and IBM i technologies to develop applications that automate key business processes for companies in the insurance and financial services industries, including policy production, underwriting, claims, collections, commissions, and

  …

  Read more

• Feeling Like A Heel

  November 28, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Correlation is not causation. That’s one of the first things you learn as an engineer or scientist. But as human beings that are genetically predisposed to find connections between disparate phenomenon, we just can’t help ourselves. We are, in the final analysis, pattern recognition machines that are wired for small tribes and that have a tendency toward gluttony with fatty, sweet, or salty foods. (Which is why Chubby Hubby ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s should be outlawed, right after I finish this here pint.) We may be designed to live in small tribes and do hunting and gathering, knowing

  …

  Read more

• More On That Dreamy And Flashy Power 720 P05 Machine

  November 28, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Once again, many thanks to the intrepid and helpful reader of The Four Hundred who gave us some insight into the equipment purchasing alternatives facing anyone who buys Power 720-class servers from IBM and the forward-looking direction the company cutting the check for the new system took. (Notice the lack of his or her in that sentence? I had to bend it pretty far to do that.) To make the situation a little clearer, that helpful reader gave us some more insight. To recap: The Dreamy and Flashy Power 720 P05 Machine is one with no disks and no expansion

  …

  Read more

• Business Strategy Bumps Into Database Deficiency

  November 28, 2011 Dan Burger

  Most IBM i-based companies do not have a well documented database. It’s likely to go unnoticed until new business requirements uncover the rat’s nest as plans to extract more information from data through business intelligence or advanced queries run smack into database policies that are haphazard or relics of the past. The IBM i operating system includes a modern database management system, but it is limited by data that is poorly defined. To one degree or another, everyone is having this problem. The solution lies between two extremes. On one end is not understanding how to solve the problem and

  …

  Read more

• As I See It: Privacy Pirates

  November 28, 2011 Victor Rozek

  November is when my property taxes are due. And living in a state without sales tax, they tend to be high. But the amount is not what rankles me. It’s the fact that in a nation built on the sanctity of property rights, I will never truly own my home, even after the final mortgage payment is made. The reality is that as soon as I’m unable to pay my taxes, the state is empowered to take it away from me. Although property rights are at best tenuous, they are so deeply embedded in our mythology that it seems heretical

  …

  Read more

Previous Articles Next Articles