Alex Woodie
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ERP Upgrades: Love ‘Em or Leave ‘Em?
November 18, 2015 Alex Woodie
… Read moreWhat is the value of an ERP system? At most companies that use them, the ERP suite is critical to daily functioning. Without a centralized place to run things like accounts payable and general ledger, the company simply couldn’t operate. But that line of reasoning does not appear to hold true when it comes to ERP upgrades, which companies are increasingly choosing not to perform.
A recent survey from Rimini Street shed some light on the situation surrounding ERP upgrades, specifically for Oracle customers. In its second-annual survey of Oracle customers around world, Rimini (which is a provider third-party maintenance
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Townsend Security Turns Over a New LEEF
November 18, 2015 Alex Woodie
… Read moreTownsend Security‘s Alliance LogAgent software now speaks Log Event Extended Format (LEEF), a data format used by IBM‘s QRadar security information and event monitoring (SIEM) software. The two companies’ integration and development work will dramatically reduce the time spent training QRadar to understand security events happening on IBM i, says Townsend Security founder and CEO Patrick Townsend.
Practically every SIEM product on the planet supports the industry standard Syslog format. Townsend’s software can convert IBM i event data, such as events logged to the QAUDJRN, into the Syslog format so it can be consumed by 35 or so
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Vision Touts MIMIX Success Stories
November 18, 2015 Alex Woodie
… Read moreWhen it comes to high availability, few products have the installed base enjoyed by MIMIX. Owned by Vision Solutions, the logical replication-based HA solution is used by thousands of IBM i shops around the world. Vision recently published a handful of those successes in customer case studies.
One of those customers, Gränges Sweden AB, originally installed Vision Solution’s OMS/ODS, the HA product Vision sold before it bought its rival Lakeview Technology way back in 2007.
When Gränges installed the HA solution in 2001, the aluminum manufacturer was seeking a way to reduce downtime caused by nightly backups, as well
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Move Your IBM i To The Cloud On Your Own Terms
November 16, 2015 Alex Woodie
… Read moreOne of the biggest technology shifts in history–the move to cloud computing–is currently occurring. But technology pros at many organizations–in particular those running IBM i servers–are fearful about what a move to the cloud will mean for them and their organization. The good news, says Denovo Ventures CTO Richard Dolewski, is that IBM i pros can make the move on their own terms.
The cloud is still fairly new to most IBM i professionals. While IBM i cloud deployments are growing, arguably less than 10 percent of IBM i workloads are cloud-based at this time. However, all signs point to
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Ops Dashboard Gives Centralized View Into IBM i Performance
November 9, 2015 Alex Woodie
… Read moreIf your company is like most IBM i shops, the system is a critical part of your daily business. Whether you are packing consumer goods, reconciling bank statements, or delivering medical care, chances are the IBM i server plays a central role. But all too often, getting a single view into the state of the machine is difficult to achieve. That is what drove HelpSystems to release a consolidated operations dashboard with performance drill-down capabilities.
The new operations dashboard that HelpSystems has unveiled allows users to monitor the state of their IBM i servers from the comfort of a mobile
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IBM i Executives: Where Are They Now?
November 4, 2015 Alex Woodie
… Read moreAnybody remember Buell Duncan, who presided over his iSeries flock with a smooth Texas drawl? Or Colin Parris, who brought a doctorate degree in electrical engineering to his IBM i tenure? If you’ve been watching IBM for very long, you’ll know the company shifts around its top executives on a regular basis. But where are those former IBM i execs now, and what are they doing? The news might surprise you.
Like lots of big, diverse companies, Big Blue likes to groom its leaders by giving them a wide range of assignments, which means that, over the past 20 years,
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Crossroads Drops Rack Requirement, Adds De-Dupe in VTL
November 4, 2015 Alex Woodie
… Read moreMega-huge data centers are hot topics in the news, but mom and pop businesses often run their IBM i servers in cozy little data closets. This fact drove Crossroads Systems to launch a workstation version of its SPHiNX virtual tape library (VTL) that doesn’t require a rack. The Texas company also gave a preview of upcoming VTL features, including data de-duplication across the wire.
Crossroads debuted the SPHiNX WS at the Fall COMMON Conference and Expo last month. With 3 TB of usable storage (expandable to 6 TB) and a starting price point of $6,800, the new VTL with the
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Komodo Launches Hosted Splunk Service for IBM i
November 4, 2015 Alex Woodie
… Read moreIBM i shops that would like to start using Splunk to analyze their log data, but don’t want the hassle of setting Splunk up themselves, have a new option available to them. Last month Komodo Cloud announced that it’s now offering a cloud-based analytics service designed specifically using Splunk with IBM i-generated data.
Over the past decade, Splunk has developed a solid reputation for its capability to analyze big data generated by machines. Its NoSQL-based software does the hard work of capturing, indexing, and correlating vast amounts of semi-structured data generated by servers, applications, network devices, mobile devices, and practically
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Raz-Lee Adds Self-Auditing Feature to Security Products
November 4, 2015 Alex Woodie
… Read more“Who polices the police?” That’s the question many CIOs are asking as they clamp down on potential security exposures in response to increasingly strict regulations. Now Raz-Lee Security is working to reduce the suspicion surrounding IBM i system administrators (i.e., the server cops) by building self-auditing capabilities directly into its security tools.
In many IBM i shops, the system administrator is typically the most powerful user on the system. This jack-of-all-trades is often called upon to do the work that would be covered by a security officer in bigger shops running open systems. It’s common to give the “keys to
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Why The Time Has Come For Penetration Testing On IBM i
November 2, 2015 Alex Woodie
… Read moreHome Depot’s point of sale (POS) system was breached in 2014, comprising information on 53 million accounts. A year before, Target’s POS was breached, putting data from at least 40 million customers in jeopardy. In both cases, the retailers were deemed “compliant” with Payment Cardholder Initiative (PCI) data security standards. But obviously there’s a big difference between complying with security regulations and actually having good security, and that’s true whether your shop runs on IBM i or any other platform.
As cyber criminals get better at penetrating computer systems (and it’s worth reminding you that they are getting very, very