News Briefs and Product Shorts

Aldon Delivers Change Management Plug-Ins for Rational Application Developer, WDSc 6.0

iSeries shops programming with WebSphere Development Studio client (WDSc) for iSeries version 6.0 or Rational Application Developer 6.0 might find it interesting that Aldon's change management software now supports these development tools via plug-ins. In late October the Northern California company announced that its Lifecycle Manager software now functions as a plug-in with the new IDEs from IBM, which were announced in August (see "IBM Rational-izes WebSphere Development Tools with Version 6"). Aldon Lifecycle Manager is the company's flagship offering, and provides change management capabilities across multiple environments. Aldon says its assortment of plug-ins enable developers to program in the environment they're most comfortable, including team synchronization views or resource views like Remote Systems Explorer or Java Package Explorer, and any IDE perspective such as Java or C++. The plug-ins are free to all Aldon customers.

DB2 OLAP Server Users Get Reprieve from IBM

Users of IBM's discontinued DB2 OLAP Server version 8.1 products were given more time last week to order maintenance as they transition to other technology providers. In August, IBM announced it was no longer going to support the multidimensional database on any of its supported platforms, including iSeries, Unix, and Windows, and would help them to transition those products and customer relationships back to SPSS and Hyperion, who are the primary developers of those products (see "IBM, Hyperion, and SPSS Part Ways on DB2 OLAP Server"). At that time, IBM set November 9 as the end of marketing date, which meant that customers would have to get their orders for extended maintenance contracts in before then. This turned out to be too little time for customers, so last week, IBM announced that customers will have until January 31, 2006, to purchase maintenance agreements. IBM will support the products until January 31, 2007.

Neon Systems Helps OS/400 Shop Move to SOA

A greenscreen COBOL application has found new life starring in a service-oriented architecture (SOA) at a Hollywood, Florida, health insurance company. The office staff at Vista Healthplan were doing double duty, entering data into it PCs and then entering that same information into PowerMHS, an OS/400 claims management system developed by Computer Sciences Corporation. It would have been too problematic to directly integrate the PC apps with PowerMHS without rewriting business logic housed in PowerMHS, says Jose Contreras, vice president of information technology for Vista Healthplan. "Integrating our front-end applications with PowerMHS is difficult primarily due to the proprietary nature of PowerMHS and its database. The business logic used to relate the underlying tables resides in PowerMHS's COBOL generated screens," he says. Contreras found a solution to this problem in the form of Shadow z/Services Distributed from NEON Systems, a Windows-based product that repackages 5250 and 3270 datastreams in XML formats. The approach has eliminated redundant data entry, and paves the way for the use of SOAP-based Web services that will provide Vista's customers with online services, such as member enrollment and the capability to access and update account information. "With NEON, our COBOL, .NET, and Java developers are leaving behind the old concept of mainframe application coding and instead we are becoming an integration shop using .NET and Java components and later, Web services, as building blocks toward deploying a full service-oriented architecture," Contreras says.

Idokorro Unveils 5250 Emulator for Nokia Cell Phones

OS/400 shops will be able to access their iSeries applications from Nokia cell phones through a new terminal emulator that Idokorro Mobile announced for the Finnish line of cell phones last week. A new release of Idokorro's Mobile SSH will support 5250, 3270, and VT100 terminal emulation on at least two Nokia phones, including the E91 and 9300 models. Idokorro, which is based in Ontario, Canada, previously only provided terminal emulation for the Blackberry devices from Research In Motion. In October, Idokorro joined two Nokia programs, including Forum Nokia PRO and Forum Nokia Pro Enterprise Zone, to gain technical support, as well as business development and marketing assistance, from the cell phone giant. The new release of Mobile SSH that supports Nokia phones will ship at an undisclosed future date. The software costs $95 per device.

American Mills Gets a Handle on Inventory with New Barcoding System

A major upgrade of warehouse information systems has been completed at American Mills, an Atlanta-based manufacturer of pillows, table linens, quilts, comforters, and various home textile products that can probably be found in a major retailer near you. The company expects to keep a better handle on exact inventory, and therefore boost its profits, as a result of the new wireless barcode scanning system that Barcoding, its consultant, put in place. The system implemented by Barcoding includes PSC Falcon 345 wireless barcode scanners and the Stay-Linked thin-client terminal emulation suite from eBusiness Solution Pros, which connects American Mills homegrown OS/400-based ERP system with the Falcon 345s. This particular model of wireless terminal was recommended by Barcoding because it provides a simple DOS user interface that users can't mess with, says David Shapiro, director of marketing for Baltimore-based Barcoding. The new system will allow the company to plan and execute purchasing, manufacturing, and shipping in a profitable manner, says Larry Scott, American Mills senior vice president of finance and information systems. "We sell, import, warehouse, manufacture, pick, pack, and ship a great many SKUs. Our entire facility is treated as a virtual warehouse of raw materials and finished goods," he says. "Through the use of wireless scanning systems, we know the exact quantities and locations of raw materials, work in process (WIP) and finished goods, what orders have been loaded for shipment and onto what trailers." The implementation, which took just six weeks, was "by far the easiest implementation I have ever experienced," Scott says.

MIMIX ha1 for Windows to Get Flexible Bandwidth Scheduling

Organizations using Lakeview Technology's MIMIX ha1 for Windows software to replicate data among iSeries-attached xSeries servers will soon be able to benefit from a new "flexible bandwidth scheduling" feature. The new feature was unveiled in a new release of the product last week by NSI Software, makers of Double-Take, the Windows replication product that Lakeview OEMs as MIMIX ha1 for Windows. Flexible bandwidth scheduling will allow users to establish a schedule that controls the amount of bandwidth consumed by the product for replication, and how much is left over for other network connections. "Our customers asked for a solution that would provide them with the data protection they needed within the bandwidth they have available. We delivered, first with [a] robust compression method for replication, and now with the development of flexible bandwidth scheduling," says Jason Buffington, director of business continuity for NSI Software. "In addition to having iSeries technical environments, our customers also have Windows systems and look to Lakeview to provide a solution that handles all their high availability needs," says Bill Hammond, director of product strategy for Lakeview. " Our partnership with NSI means our MIMIX ha1 for Windows delivers iSeries users the peace of mind of world class data protection while maintaining the high performance of a customer's network." Lakeview is currently testing the new release of Double-Take, and plans to make it available to customers by the end of the year as MIMIX ha1 for Windows version 4.4.2. Pricing for the software starts at about $2,500 per server.