• Admin Alert: Getting into a i5/OS Restricted State

  September 10, 2008 Joe Hertvik

  There’s a special place for restricted state processing in the i5/OS or OS/400 world. In restricted state, administrators can apply upgrades, change core system parameters, backup the operating system and run special commands that affect partition configurations. This week, I’ll examine everything about restricted state processing, from why it exists, to how to enter and leave this core operating system function. The Beauty of Restriction Some i5/OS functions can’t be run while the system is active. That’s why IBM created restricted state processing, a feature that isn’t available in many other operating systems. Restricted state occurs when you end all

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• SafeData Launches First Fully Managed Service for i5/OS HA

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  Have you had enough trouble trying to keep up with your i OS high availability (HA) environment? Not 100 percent sure that you could successfully execute a role swap when the hurricane is bearing down? If this sounds like your situation, you may want to consider the HA management service that was recently announced by SafeData. As part of the program, SafeData will take over all aspects of managing your iTera HA or MIMIX environment, and for about $20,000 per year, guarantee that it will be ready for a role swap. While improvements have been made to i5/OS HA

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• Aldon Brings PHP Closer Into Change Management Fold

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  Aldon has been bit by the PHP bug. Last week, the developer of application lifecycle management (ALM) software announced that it’s now offering a plug-in for Zend‘s Studio for Eclipse that will allow System i shops and other PHP users the capability to keep track of all of their development in a single, integrated repository. It’s another notch in PHP’s enterprise belt, and further evidence that PHP is making headway in the System i market. Not all of Aldon’s customers are System i shops. But well over 50 percent are, so when Aldon makes a change or supports a

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• HiT’s DBMoto Gains Enterprise Replication Features

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  Companies looking to move large amounts of data among various databases with the least amount of hassle may want to take a look at DBMoto version 6.5, a newly released data replication tool from HiT Software. With this release, DBMoto gains more enterprise features, such as the capability to automatically change the order of data replication to adhere to the constraints of referential integrity inside a database. More detailed log data, collection of metadata, and speedier data replication and data migration round out the release. DBMoto is a Windows-based data replication tool that moves data among nearly 20 different

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• AmeriVault Debuts DR Service for i OS Servers

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  AmeriVault is now in the i OS disaster recovery (DR) business. Last month, the Waltham, Massachusetts, provider of online vaulting and DR services, unveiled RestartIT-VDR iSeries, a new offering that combines remote backups and hot site services, enabling i OS servers (and the businesses that depend on them) to get back online within hours after a disaster. There are several components to AmeriVault’s new RestartIT-VDR iSeries offering. The service utilizes customers’ Internet connections to remotely back up their i OS (formerly i5/OS and OS/400) servers to one of AmeriVault’s i OS servers located in one of the company’s data centers.

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• BMC Aims to Bring Virtual Servers Under Control

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  Virtualization is a blessing and a curse to IT departments. On the one hand, it allows them to squeeze more capacity out of their existing hardware. On the other, it introduces another layer to manage and exacerbates existing operational shortcomings. Not surprisingly, the big systems management software vendors are scrambling to fill this void in the market, and last week BMC threw its hat into the ring with nine new products for managing various aspects of a virtual environments, including those running on IBM i (formerly i5/OS). Numerous problems are often associated with the use of virtualization, including aggravating server

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• IBM Launches Lotus Protector to Boost E-Mail Security

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  While e-mail remains the original “killer app” and an irreplaceable part of modern business and communication, the amount of spam and malware circulating the e-mail byways makes it more difficult than ever to manage efficiently. To address the headache that is e-mail security, IBM and its Internet Security Systems subsidiary are launching a new line of products called Lotus Protector, the first of which became available last week. IBM and ISS say that the new Lotus Protector line of products will aim to solve common e-mail security problems, but to do so in a Domino-like way that’s familiar to Domino

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• File Upload Feature Added to mrc’s m-Power

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  E-mail is a wonderful technology that has a hundred practical uses. However, when it comes to moving large numbers of files in a simple and timely manner, e-mail and its attachment capability are far from ideal. With the latest release of mrc m-Power Web application development tool, users gain the capability to build file uploading capabilities directly into their m-Power applications. Introduced more than four years ago to supplement its OS/400-only Productivity Series 4GL environment, m-Power is a Web application development environment designed to enable rapid generation of J2EE-based programs, such as Web portals, dashboards, and reports. The software utilizes

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• HarrisData’s ‘Customer Zone’ Written in PHP

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  HarrisData recently launched a new customer-focused Web site that’s aimed at helping its i OS ERP customers–as well as the CRM customers of a subsidiary–voice their concerns and get answers to their questions. The site, called the Customer Zone, is based on open source applications for a Web-based forum and wikis written in PHP, and runs on one of HarrisData’s System i servers. Like most commercial software companies, HarrisData has provided online resources dedicated to assisting its estimated 2,500 customers, who are predominantly mid size companies in the manufacturing and distribution industries. The first-generation Customer Zone was effective at publishing

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• ACOM Makes EDI for SAP Easy

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  Businesses that run SAP‘s enterprise software and ACOM Solutions‘s EDI software, called EZConnect, will have an easier time integrating the two products thanks to a new implementation toolkit for SAP from ACOM. EZConnect runs on the Windows platform and provides EDI and XML translation and transformation for a variety of databases, operating systems, and ERP and accounting packages, including those running on the IBM i operating system (formerly OS/400). EZConnect users could previously use the software with ERP software from SAP, but it wasn’t necessarily easy, according to Mark Firmin, vice president of marketing and product management for

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