Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition

Bytware recently started shipping a new release of PeekPlus, an application that allows help desk personnel to assist in training and diagnosing problems by seeing exactly what's occurring on users' OS/400 screens, including their keystrokes. New features in PeekPlus Version 3.4 include compatibility with OS/400 V5R2, support for OS/400 security levels 40 and 50, and enhancements that reduce or eliminate risk of security exposure while using the software.

Helping a user in the far side of your building with a tough query is one thing, but supporting your company's employees located in Fairbanks, Alaska, can get very expensive and turn into a giant waste of your time. Bytware developed PeekPlus to give administrators and operators an easy, low-effort way to "peek" in on their users to see exactly what kind of problem they're having with an OS/400 application. Armed with this information, administrators can then guide the users to resolutions over the phone or through PeekPlus' pop-up "chat" Window. It even allows programmers to issue CL commands, to access QTEMP objects, and to grant authorities to correct a problem.

There are other uses for PeekPlus besides help desk support, Bytware says, such as quality control at telemarketing operations. Because users are not aware when they're being watched with PeekPlus, it makes an excellent auditing tool, particularly when deployed in tandem with phone-monitoring equipment. A screen-capture program makes PeekPlus valuable for capturing screenshots for use in manuals or application documentation, the company says.

In PeekPlus Version 3.4, Bytware has made several changes to improve the application's security. By using new APIs available with OS/400 V5R2, the company has been able to reduce or eliminate most of the dependency on MI code that was preventing the product from being run at security level 40 or 50. By making PeekPlus compatible with those higher security levels, users are no longer faced with a barrier to implementing tighter security in that way.

The company also says it has reduced or eliminated the risk of someone exploiting security officer user profiles outside of the PeekPlus environment. This has been done by removing most of the adopting QSECOFR authorities used by the program. Security has also been improved by implementing single-use profile tokens where needed, and by making system API calls "library qualified," which, the company says, eliminates the risk of someone exploiting security by manipulating their library list.

Other enhancements in PeekPlus 3.4 include capabilities that allow users to see the screens of users with multiple group jobs, and to follow those jobs. There should be fewer conflicts with other applications that intercept data queues now that PeekPlus library qualifies its data queue API calls in Version 3.4, which also features enhanced integration with Vision Solutions' high availability software and other fixes. For more information, go to www.bytware.com.

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