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Volume 4, Number 5 -- February 3, 2004

Quadrant Updates Fax Server for OS/400, Other Platforms


by Alex Woodie

The facsimile has come a long way since it was first invented by Scotsman Alexander Bain in 1843. Standardized in the 1960s, and hit hard by the rise of the Internet and e-mail in the late 1990s, fax volume is on the rebound today, and being able to send and receive faxes is still a requirement for companies of all sizes. It's a good bet that the new inbound routing capabilities that Quadrant Software introduced in its FastFax solution would have impressed Bain.

Quadrant's FastFax products are hardware/software solutions that transmit, receive, and centrally manage faxes within OS/400, Windows, and NetWare environments. FastFax gives users the capability to manage faxes from their e-mail clients, if they want, and the software can also be tied to other modules in Quadrant's Electronic Document Distribution suite of document management software.

Quadrant sells four variants of its FastFax solution. FastFax/Ultra is for pure OS/400 environments, while FastFax/LAN works with Windows and NetWare servers. Companies needing to support OS/400 and NetWare and Windows can choose FastFax/Enterprise. The company also sells a pure software solution, called FastFax/Blue, designed for customers who already bought a fax card for their OS/400 server from IBM. Otherwise, Quadrant's FastFax offerings include a Wintel box loaded with Brooktrout Technology fax cards.

With the Version 4.5.2 release of the FastFax eFax Server, Quadrant has beefed up its three hardware/software solutions. The company says users will benefit from more flexible inbound fax routing with the expanded support for two services--dialed number identification service (DNIS) and automatic number identification (ANI)--which are provided by telecommunication carriers. Whereas DNIS tells FastFax what phone number the inbound fax was calling (useful if a single trunk line), ANI tells FastFax what phone number is doing the calling, like Caller ID.

FastFax users can do a couple of neat things with ANI and DNIS support, Quadrant says. First, DNIS lets companies route faxes directly to the intended recipient's desktop fax client or e-mail inbox. When specific people within a department are assigned to handle certain customers or vendors, the combination of ANI and DNIS support provides even more intelligent routing, based on the fax's originating area code, telephone exchange number (the first three digits), or the entire telephone number. Faxing has come a long way from Bain's steel drum days.

Quadrant says it has also made the product more efficient in other areas. First, the purge process has been improved and now takes less time to complete. Also, the software now allows users to send batch cover sheets that have been customized by department, which decreases the cost of batch faxing without sacrificing recipient recognition, the company says.

Improvements have also been made to Quadrant's fax hardware. First, the FastFax servers can now be fitted with a single high-performance T1/E1 fax card, which can send and receive transmissions at up to 33.6 Kbps, the company says. Quadrant also offers high availability capability, which we reported on last month.

Licenses for FastFax/Enterprise 4.5.2 start at $10,700. The high availability option can add up to several thousand dollars to this price. For more information, go to www.quadrantsoftware.com.

Sponsored By
ARCAD

ARCAD Software:
Optimizes your software supply chain across multi-platforms

THE PROBLEM

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A large number of iSeries customers, if not all, work not only with native development but also with many other development platforms such as Windows, UNIX and more recently Linux. These applications are very often connected with the database or other iSeries objects. This brings with it many problems, all related to the complexity of administrating heterogeneous environments:

  • Is it possible to manage all developments centrally?
  • Can we implement the same level of methodology on all platforms?
  • How can we measure the impact of a modification on a native component on other external components?
  • How can we synchronize the transfer to production process for inter-dependent components and platforms?

THE SOLUTION

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The solution to these problems is provided by combining:

  • The IBM iSeries Integrated File System capability, which stores all component types on a single machine.
  • The ARCAD-Skipper suite to catalog all components, native and heterogeneous, and all changes to components, according to the same methodology.

At ARCAD Software, our mission is to provide concrete and workable solutions for iSeries centric software configuration management. Initiated twelve years ago, the ARCAD Software solutions benefit from a totally innovative approach and a unique architecture.

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AN INTEGRATED APPROACH

Putting in place a change management toolset is a prerequisite for evolving an information system with maximum productivity and security. But alone it is still far from sufficient, a cross reference tool is both complementary, and indispensable to the developer. The two requirements are closely linked. ARCAD Software is the only vendor to propose a global approach to this dual need: via its integrated repository, it offers full registration of software components and also complete cross-referencing down to the field level and the source lines.

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A UNIQUE INFORMATION SOURCE

Supported by the ARCAD-Open Repository, ARCAD-Skipper brings to the developer both a constant information source and a controlled structure. It offers:

  • An high-granularity impact analysis system,
  • Up to 100% automation of compilation phases.

Furthermore, the repository will also be used to carry out automatic integrity checks on versions. The consistency of relations such as source/object, file/program, COPY clause/program is automatically checked before any transfer to test or transfer to production. In the same way, ARCAD will check relations with IFS components. Thus, even in a multi-platform configuration, it is possible to guarantee the same level of consistency.

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A TOTALLY MULTI-PLATFORM APPROACH

Thanks to the invaluable operating system advance, the Integrated File System (IFS), you can transform your iSeries platform into a "sentry", securing your entire application set. ARCAD-Skipper uses the IFS as the foundation for its version management functions. This approach guarantees:

  • Referencing of your entire set of software components (iSeries, Windows, UNIX/Linux) in a single and shared repository,
  • Physical security of components,
  • Versioning of components with integrated archiving,
  • Organization of the change process,
  • Management of synchronized deployments in heterogeneous environments.

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UNIQUE CUSTOMIZATION FEATURES

Another important aspect of the product is its customization capability. In the change management domain, high flexibility is needed to adapt to an existing organization. Each customer has their own standards and configuration particularities. We have overcome this problem at ARCAD with the help of our internal macro language. This internal language is unique in the market. All transfer to test and transfer to production processes, and also distribution and installation on remote machines, are defined in the form of macro-commands. Standard macros are provided with the product and can be adapted to the customer's particular needs.

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SIMPLE TO IMPLEMENT

At the same time as being highly customizable, ARCAD-Skipper is extremely simple to put in place. This is achieved by delivering with the product a complete pre-configuration corresponding to the large majority of customer needs.


STRONG POINTS AND BENEFITS

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Integration

One of the major characteristics of the ARCAD-Skipper suite is to offer at the same time a functional and a technical view of the information system. In this way it brings both security to the change cycle of software components, and also complete control over the knowledge of an information system. Being totally integrated in this way, ARCAD-Skipper reaps the benefits of any integrated product:

  • Total consistency and non-redundancy of its database,
  • A single and consistent user interface,

Reliability

It is not worth spending large sums of money to ensure high availability in terms of hardware and data if, at the same time, we cannot guarantee high availability of the application itself. ARCAD-Skipper acts as the guarantor of this high application availability.

Consistency

ARCAD-Skipper allows software change to be tackled in a more controlled and systematic manner. The integration, even temporary, of new team members will not destabilize the project, since successive developers working on the IS will all work in the same structured methodological framework.


A PROGRESSIVE SOLUTION

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ARCAD-Skipper is an open solution that can be complemented by other software suites in our range:

ARCAD-Observer: application MINING and retro-documentation

This suite offers a toolkit to facilitate the understanding of the internal architecture of your applications, and allows the same information to be synthesized into technical documentation. It ensures methodology in the update of this documentation, thanks to an integrated project management and the identification of modified components.
The documents in HTML format can be transferred to an intranet for easy sharing.

ARCAD-Observer is an indispensable and complementary tool to the ARCAD-Skipper change management solution.

ARCAD-Customer: management of technical support, 100% internet/intranet

ARCAD-Customer will increase the efficiency to your technical support, as it is the first Help-Desk solution to be both intranet/internet and oriented towards application maintenance. Thanks to its integration with the ARCAD-Skipper version management, you can fully customize your communication with users. With ARCAD-Customer, interaction with users becomes transparent.
This product benefits from original features such as preventive maintenance and "patch" management.

ARCAD-Qualifier: Control of test phases

This suite consists of three solutions key to the success of your application testing:

  • A non-regression test robot, or record and play tool, allowing the definition of functional scenarios, and the automated replay of these scenarios at each version change.
  • A dynamic code analyzer, capable of revealing which parts of the code have not been tested, and ensuring that code modifications are tested.
  • A test data extractor, allowing extracts of the production database to be taken while preserving referential integrity. With this solution, you control:
    o The disk space required by your tests,
    o The regular renewal of test data,
    o The reproduction of errors in production.

ARCAD-Transformer: 100 % automated impact analysis

This software suite allows you to undertake large database transformation projects in complete confidence.

It will produce a detailed impact analysis down to the source line level and offers an automatic source transformation mechanism

This suite will bring both productivity gains and greater reliability to your software evolutions.

For additional information, call 800-676-4709.
Visit Arcad at www.arcadsoftware.com
Editor: Alex Woodie
Managing Editor: Shannon Pastore
Contributing Editors: Dan Burger, Joe Hertvik,
Shannon O'Donnell, Timothy Prickett Morgan
Publisher and Advertising Director: Jenny Thomas
Advertising Sales Representative: Kim Reed
Contact the Editors: To contact anyone on the IT Jungle Team
Go to our contacts page and send us a message.

THIS ISSUE
SPONSORED BY:

Bytware
Aldon Computer Group
Lakeview Technology
ARCAD
Cosyn Software


BACK ISSUES

TABLE OF
CONTENTS
TriAWorks Aims to Simplify Single Sign-On with EIM Utility

Stampede to Expand Web App Performance Product Line

Symtrax Improves iSeries Report Access with WebReports

Quadrant Updates Fax Server for OS/400, Other Platforms

News Briefs and Product Shorts



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