Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web

(IT Jungle) Last fall Mark Shearer, general manager of the System i division, hinted about a "work stream" project that was building toward a more competitive entry-level server based on per-month, per-user charges for the hardware rather than selling it in a traditional way. The idea first came to market in the form of Capacity Backup Editions and later specific Solution Edition models, but now it's being rolled out in general purpose boxes that can run without restrictions. Is this the entry-level, Windows fighter that we've been waiting for? READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) When you take the top of the line System i5 595 servers and inject them with the fastest Power5+ processors, you almost expect to see two scorched-rubber tire tracks across the data center floor. There's something about these high performance machines that makes the heart pound a little faster, and I think it's an undeniable truth that geeks love speed. READ MORE >

(MCPress) The new System i Express models are just what every AS/400 and iSeries customer has been asking IBM to provide--potent competitors to Windows servers. Not a Windows killer, mind you, but an offering that allows the value proposition to be an advantage when comparison shopping. READ MORE >

(Search400) One way to make a point about the value of the newly priced and packaged System i Express models is to stack a half dozen or so X86 servers next to an i515 or i525 and have the persuasive VP of marketing, Elaine Lennox, tell the media that everything that runs on those X86s could run on a single System i. And now with a new entry-level price, this point may hit home with buyers who were previously stopped in their tracks when the topic of initial cost was put on the table. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) One of my favorite old sayings is that timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance. Last week a report titled "The State of System i Security 2007" was released. The serious nature of this testimony on the security inadequacies that plague most organizations was coincidentally heightened by the news of the largest incident of hacking in IT industry history. Nice timing. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) One of the leading candidates for prestigious IT Word of the Year Award, virtualization, is in danger of falling out of the running if this examination of the facts proves to be true. What? You thought that every system was either virtualized or would be virtualized before next Tuesday? Well, then, this report could be the equivalent of a cold shower for you. READ MORE >

(MCPress) Duncan Kenzie, president and CTO of BCD Technical Support, takes aim at "restrictive, proprietary, dead-end development languages and infrastructure" in this article that makes a case for moving core business applications to the Web and using the System i as the primary Web server. His warning to those who drag their feet: competitors will gain an advantage and your business will likely suffer. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) As IBM advanced its products from punch card equipment to electronic computers to mainframe, minicomputer systems, and PCs, there's a story that accompanies its rise as a publicly traded company. Now might be a good time to take that story in a different direction. Imagine, if you will, Big Blue going private. READ MORE >

(NetworkWorld) IBM's Express line of software, which also restricts the number of users and offers reduced licensing costs, added Domino Collaboration Express and Domino Utility Server Express to the product mix last week. Additional savings are offered when a customer migrates from a competitive e-mail product. The Utility Server Express, which is tuned for running Web-based applications, is priced at one-third the cost of the full version of Utility Server. READ MORE >

Vendor Announcements, Promotions, and Deals

(IT Jungle) Given just a short amount of time, application development without some form of order and organization will quickly spiral out of control. The more developers on the team, the quicker this will happen. It's also why change management software plays a huge role in shops where a lot of app dev work is in progress. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) When IBM sold its Printing Systems Division to Ricoh an agreement was made to jointly run the business under the name InfoPrint Solutions Company for three years. In case you've been wondering about the ongoing support AFP/IPDS, the answer is here. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) As long as there have been businesses, there have been office workers who do nothing but push paper from one place to another. Forms, reports, letters, invoices, purchase orders, statements, receipts . . . the list goes on and on and the stacks of paper get higher and higher. Then, somewhere, a light came on and a voice said, "Hey, why don't we try electronic document management?" READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) If you got an early start reading the Four Hundred Monitor today, you may still have time to catch the chat session featuring Jim Herring, the director of System i products and business operations, and Ian Jarman, the System i product manager. They'll be talking up the fresh from the oven System i user-based pricing announcement and a few other i5/OS desserts that IBM has cooked up. It all begins at noon CDT. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Regardless of all this talk about technology, the biggest asset to any organization is its people. And just as people manage technology, it's also true that technology helps manage people. Consider, for a minute, software that handles human resource issues such as time and attendance, scheduling, absence management, hiring, and the selection process. And what about specific factors that arise in niche industries? READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Big Blue is bullish (I almost said blue-ish) on service oriented architecture. In fact, if you look at all the software and middleware products produced by IBM, the company is legitimately blue-ish on SOA, too. For a third-party vendor to be invited into the IBM SOA expo barn is no small accomplishment. I'd equate it to running a marathon while simultaneously spinning plates on pointy sticks. READ MORE >

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources

(Aldon) Creating an IT environment that is conducive to building a service oriented architecture is the first step toward getting a handle on this project. This white paper provides an inventory of service components and recommends tracking and monitoring the progress of a SOA with a software configuration management system. READ MORE >

(LXI) This white paper examines how a well-intentioned disaster recovery plan can provide data that can be used against your own company in court. CIOs, IT directors and managers are being held accountable for the accuracy of the information their systems produce and they should understand record retention policies and the consequences of uncontrolled data life cycle management. READ MORE >

(Lakeview Technology) This white paper examines the challenges faced by retailers with regard to the availability and accessibility of retail data and applications, regardless of planned or unplanned interruptions. It provides advice on various information availability and disaster recovery software solutions for retailers and offers tips on how to determine the impact and cost of downtime. The report also includes examples of how several retailers, distribution companies and suppliers used information availability software to solve their downtime challenges and protect IT infrastructures. READ MORE >

(Manhattan Associates) New Ways to Master Order Fulfillment is a white paper that examines the seemingly divergent supply chain management goals of improving customer service while reducing inventory and capital investments. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

See our full calendar of events at
http://www.itjungle.com/fhm/fhm-calendar.html

April 12 -- Chat Session - Jim Herring, the director of IBM System i Products and Business Operations, and Ian Jarman, the IBM System i Product Manager, will be talking about the the new System i Express models in a teleconference hosted by iSociety. This will be a question and answer format as the two System i executives field questions from the chat session attendees. The event begins at noon CDT. LEARN MORE >

April 12 -- Kent, Washington - The Pacific Midrange Systems Association meeting features a session on tape backup alternatives this month. Guest speakers are IBM's Mark Ruberry and Joe Lampitt, and they will be discussing the virtual tape capability of i5/OS V5R4, which supports heterogeneous systems and includes encryption. The meeting begins at 11:30 a.m. LEARN MORE >

April 12 -- Wauwatosa, Wisconsin - The Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association monthly meeting includes two presentations this month. The first session on tuning performance for DB2 UDB for the System I is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. The second session on Query and SQL performance monitoring will take place at 7:30 p.m. The meeting takes place at Alioto's Restaurant located at 3041 N. Mayfair Road. LEARN MORE >

April 12 -- Maryland Heights, Missouri - The Gateway/400 Group monthly meeting topic is WebSphere Development Studio Client presented by IBM's George Farr. Meetings are held at the Graphic Communication Banquet Facility located at 105 Progress Parkway and get under way at 11:30 a.m. LEARN MORE >

April 12 -- Toronto, Ontario - This workshop focuses on modernizing System i applications using a business application framework for improved extendibility, navigation and presentation, including isolating and reusing the best parts of legacy applications. It is hosted by LANSA, one of the leading vendors of application development, modernization, and integration software for the System i market. The session is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. and conclude at 1 p.m. LEARN MORE >

April 12-15 -- Las Vegas, Nevada - The i5/OS Hartley Racing Team--headed by Allen Hartley, owner of ProData Computer Services--will be lining up their 330-mph pro fuel dragster at the SummitRacing.com Nationals. Allen's son, Joe, will be at the wheel and competing against the fastest, quarter-mile race cars in the world. Time trials are run Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The final round of the 16 fastest cars compete on Sunday. For more information on the racing Hartleys, go to the iDigDrags Web site where you can also find a link to the National Hot Rod Association and info about the Las Vegas racing event. LEARN MORE >

April 17-19 -- Toronto, Ontario - The Toronto Users Group Technical Conference includes sessions for RPG programmers, operations staff, and project managers covering topics such as RPG, ILE, SQL, DB2, Web services, disaster recovery, Linux, security, PHP, business continuity planning, and supply chain management. A vendor showcase area is free without registering for the conference. The keynote speaker is the RPG expert, Paul Tuohy. Guest speaker at the executive breakfast is John Pratt, the business unit executive for the System i division in Canada. LEARN MORE >

April 17 -- Norwalk, Connecticut - The Fairfield AS/400 Users Group monthly meeting features two topics. The first session, from 4:30 to 5:45 p.m., pertains to managing Windows servers using iSCSI and VMware technology. The second session, from 7:15 to 8:45 p.m., takes a look at PHP Web Scripting Language. Andy Chung, an IBM Field Technical Sales Specialist, is the speaker for both sessions. FASUG meetings are held at the Norwalk Inn and dinner is served between the two sessions. LEARN MORE >

April 17 -- Lombard, Illinois - Rusty Edmister--one of the experts at the IBM Research Facility in Raleigh, North Carolina--will present an overview of the WebFacing Deployment Tool with Host Access Transformation Services Technology (WDHT V7) at the OMNI user group meeting. WDHT V7 intercepts a 5250 data stream on its way out of an executing program, transforms it into a graphical interface, and displays that interface on a browser or on a personal computer attached to a System i. Another feature of WDHT is that it allows screens to be combined or skipped and also allows multiple programs to be combined. The user group meeting begins at 5 p.m. LEARN MORE >

April 18 -- Independence, Ohio - Building iSeries Web Applications will be the highlighted topic during the Application Systems Users Group of Greater Cleveland meeting, which begins at 5:30 p.m. and takes place at Harry's Steakhouse. This presentation will cover tools, techniques, and experiences related to development of iSeries Web applications. Topics on the agenda include: SQL, WebSphere and Tomcat application servers, dynamic JDBC, using Java with Eclipse/WebSphere Studio for custom business logic programming, techniques for creating self-service Web applications for B2B, security considerations on the iSeries, good and bad experiences with WebSphere, Tomcat, WebSphere Studio, HATS, and Java. Guest speaker is Paul Holm, a certified AS/400, DB2, Java, and WebSphere instructor. LEARN MORE >

April 18 -- Research Triangle Park, North Carolina - Attendees of this workshop have an opportunity to learn about System i application modernization alternatives presented by LANSA, one of the most recognized vendors of application development, modernization, and integration software for the System i market. The session is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. and conclude at 11:30 a.m. LEARN MORE >

April 19 -- Columbia, South Carolina - "All You Need to Know about SQL in Six Hours," a one-day seminar will be presented by Skip Marchesani, who will explain the basic concepts and theory of SQL, and the creation and execution of simple SQL statements. Marchesani will combine lecture and live demonstrations in this workshop. The event is sponsored by the local Midlands User Group and the COMMON user group. It begins at 9 a.m. and concludes at 4 p.m. LEARN MORE >

April 19 -- Webcast - This 60-minute session presented by Mark Olson of IBM will provide an update on the latest offering strategy for entry systems and solutions for small and mid size businesses. The event is hosted by the COMMON user group and registration is free to both COMMON members and nonmembers. The event begins at noon CT. LEARN MORE >

April 20 -- Chicago, Illinois - A one-day application modernization technical seminar focusing on the service oriented architecture, Web services, and extending the value of RPG-based applications and OS/400-based system hardware is being presented by ASNA. It will emphasize using Windows- and Web-based .NET architectures. The sessions are designed for technical managers and implementers. LEARN MORE >