Bug Busters Achieves High Availability Milestone with RSF 8.1
by Alex Woodie

Bug Busters Software Engineering last month issued a major release of its flagship product, Remote Software Facility version 8.1, that can replicate nearly every type of object on the i5/OS platform, including user profiles and data queues. And with a price tag of about $10,000, the number of reasons for not considering RSF--still used primarily by ISVs for distributing software updates to customers--for an i5/OS high availability project just dropped again. READ MORE >

LANSA to Deliver Code-Less Business Process Integration for SMBs
by Alex Woodie

LANSA this month plans to ship Composer, a new business process integration (BPI) solution that allows nontechnical workers to build automation into business process workflows, such as automatically alerting customers of an unexpected hiccup in delivery schedules, thereby freeing programmers for other tasks. Such BPI solutions are common in large companies, which can afford costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. With a price tag in the low tens of thousands, LANSA is betting Composer will be a hit among small and mid size System i shops. READ MORE >

Water District Makes Second Run at Electronic Document Retention
by Victor Wortman

As the 21st Century dawned, management at the Santa Margarita Water District concluded that paper-based record-keeping no longer satisfied either its mandated compliance and freedom of information responsibilities or its own voluminous record-keeping and disaster recovery requirements. The utility struck what appeared to be a great deal for a record-retention solution, but three years of struggles put a damper on the deal. However, in early 2007 a replacement document management system from ACOM Solutions was implemented that is expected to save as much as $250,000 over the next five years. READ MORE >

The ROI of RF Technology
by Alex Woodie

When it comes to running warehouses, it seems as if newer technologies like radio frequency identification (RFID) get all the good press. But the fact remains that the bulk of automation, and therefore the bulk of the return on investment (ROI) of technology purchases, lies among older technologies such as RF barcoding, and even integrated voice response (IVR). VAI manufacturing segment manager, Pete Zimmerman, who will speak at APICS (the Association for Operations Management) later this month, recently gave IT Jungle an overview of the state of the art in warehousing technologies. READ MORE >