News Briefs and Product Shorts

Bug Busters Adds 'Tunneling' for Secure TCP/IP Communication

Bug Busters Software Engineering last week announced it has brought support for "tunneling" to its Remote Software Facility, an OS/400 utility that streamlines the delivery of objects among networked AS/400 and iSeries servers. Bug Busters says the new add-on for Remote Software Facility 7.2 allows any TCP/IP application to be run with full encryption between two OS/400 servers. Until now, the company says, transmissions for popular TCP/IP applications, such as the Telnet client provided with OS/400, could not be fully encrypted between two OS/400 servers. More specifically, while the OS/400 server could act as a server for encrypted Telnet connections, it could not act as a client for an encrypted connection, the company says. That can be alleviated with the new Start RSF Tunnel command in Remote Software Facility 7.2, which enables secure TCP/IP, using either RSF's built-in encryption or SSL. Any TCP/IP application can be run through the encrypted tunnel by simply specifying the tunnel's port number on the command used to initiate the application, Bug Busters says. Remote Software Facility 7.2, which costs $575 per machine, was introduced last month (see "Bug Busters Enables True Object Broadcasting with RSF 7.2").

Land O' Frost to Implement Logility's Supply Chain Software

Logility's supply chain planning software running on iSeries hardware will help lunchmeat manufacturer Land O' Frost to open its third manufacturing plant in the coming months, the Atlanta-based software vendor announced last week. As the manufacturer of the fifth largest selling brand of lunchmeats in the United States, Land O' Frost currently operates production facilities in Searcy, Arkansas, and Lansing, Illinois. The opening of a third plant drove the decision to improve the planning and scheduling processes through several of Logility's Voyager applications, including Manufacturing Planning, Demand Planning, Inventory Planning, and Replenishment Planning. "We selected Logility Voyager Solutions because the products have a proven track record for delivering rapid results for food manufacturers," says John Horton, vice president of customer services for Land O' Frost, "and because we can use one solution to help us level load production across our supply chain, optimize inventory investments, improve our forecasting process, and manage promotional lifts." Land O' Frost is family owned, it operates its own truck fleet, and it sells its products through grocery stores and other retail channels. The company also offers its customers the capability to customize formulations, product forms, and pack forms.

Ricoh Picks Equitrac to Enable IPDS Printing

Equitrac will provide Ricoh with an IPDS software module that enables Ricoh's printers to print high-end AFP print jobs directly from IBM servers, Equitrac announced last week. Equitrac says it has entered an OEM contract whereby it will supply Ricoh with an embedded IPDS solution that enables direct communication between a host computer and a Ricoh printer, and does away with the requirement for an external print controller to translate the AFP commands into the printer's native ASCI language. Ricoh originally announced support for IPDS about a year ago. Equitrac, based in Plantation, Florida, was founded in 1977 and specializes in providing hardware and software systems that track, record, and report on the expense of office automation.

Red Prairie Calculates Employee Productivity At Three PkMS Shops

Three users of Manhattan Associates' Warehouse Management application have a better handle on employee productivity, thanks to the integration of RedPrairie's DLx Labor productivity measurement system. RedPrairie, based in Waukesha, Wisconsin, has enabled these customers to pass transaction level details from their Manhattan Associates system directly into DLx Labor to calculate individual associates' performance and provide real-time operational performance information to management. RedPrairie partner Kurt Salmon Associates designed and built the interfaces between the OS/400 and open-systems versions of Manhattan Associates' Warehouse Management solutions (formerly called PkMS). Other supply chain execution products that have been integrated with DLx Labor include those from SAP, PeopleSoft, SSA Global, and Kewill.

Enhancements to Cross-Platform Job Schedulers

A couple of updated job schedulers from predominantly mainframe software vendors have recently become available. UC4 Software last week unleashed a new release of its cross-platform job scheduler and event automation software, UC4:global, which supports OS/400 and a number of other platforms. With Version 3.02B, the Plainview, New York, vendor now includes an auto-forecast function that displays tasks scheduled to run within a specified time period, a new browser-based interface, and integrated version management. UC4 has also enhanced UC4:global for some specific environments, including the software for Siebel, Hewlett-Packard OpenView Operations, Intel Itanium, SAP running on Linux, and Oracle10g. ASG, based in Naples, Florida, has also enhanced its cross-platform job scheduling software with the introduction of ASG-Zena 2.0, a component of its cross-platform operations management suite that extends event-based job scheduling to supported platforms, in addition to more traditional date- or time-based scheduling. With the Java-based ASG-Zena, users can graphically define events across OS/400, mainframe, Windows, Unix, and Linux systems.

GE Commercial Finance Extends Use of ACBS for Worldwide Lending

GE Commercial Finance has expanded its license to an OS/400-based commercial lending system from Fidelity, its subsidiary Fidelity Information Services announced last week. GE Commercial Finance will expand its use of the ACBS product line by adding the origination, syndication (SyndTrak and SyndTrak On-line), servicing, and portfolio management modules of the ACBS product line to its existing ACBS implementation. Currently, two groups within GE Commercial Finance, Corporate Financial Services and Healthcare Financial Services, have already successfully implemented ACBS in the United States. The expansion will also help GE to use ACBS for managing their commercial loans in other business units around the world, says Richard Levy, president of ACBS, which is also the name of a Fidelity Information Services subsidiary. ACBS runs on Windows and OS/400, or can be delivered via the ASP method, and is used by more than 70 financial institutions, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Merrill Lynch.