Alex Woodie
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SoftLanding Repositions TurnOver for Database Conversions
August 19, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreIt’s been a while since we had any product news out of SoftLanding, the developer of the TurnOver change management tool that was acquired by Unicom Global nearly eight years ago. But earlier this month, we were apprised of a new release of TurnOver that introduces functionality in an area of IBM i development that’s starting to get some traction: DDS-to-DDL database conversions.
Undergoing a conversion from the old DDS data type to the newer DDL data type and SQL is not for the faint of heart. The vast majority of IBM i applications were originally developed with the
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LaserVault DMS10 Unchains Your Documents
August 19, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreWant to break free from your desk and roam the country wild? If your company adopts the latest release of the LaserVault Document Management Solution from Electronic Storage Corp., you’ll be able to conduct business wirelessly thanks to the new DMS client interface that runs on Android and iOS tablets and smartphones.
Lately, LaserVault has been focused on solving its IBM i customers’ backup and storage needs with its Universal Backup Device (UBD) series, which allow users to replace tape libraries with an appliance or any old NAS array that supports a CIFS, NFS, or iSCSI connection.
But you
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S4i Goes IASP with Document Management Tool for HA Protection
August 19, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreS4i Systems is now supporting independent auxiliary storage pools (IASPs) with S4i Express, its electronic document management and distribution tool for the IBM i OS. Running S4i Express within an IASP will give customers new options in the area of disaster recovery (DR), the company says.
S4i Express is a native IBM i program that helps reduce users’ reliance on pre-printed forms while transitioning them to paperless business processes. The software monitors IBM i print queues, processes the output using report-segmenting or bundling rules, converts it into PostScript, PDF, HTML, RTF, CSV, or plain text format, and then distributes it
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Tango/04 Lunches Alignia to Simplify Corporate Monitoring
August 19, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreTango/04 Computing Group last month unveiled Alignia, a new IT- and business-monitoring solution designed to make it easier for an organization to monitor events that can have an impact, not only on their businesses but their customers and suppliers as well.
Tango/04 has worked extensively in the IBM i world, and supports the IBM i platform (among others) with its flagship VISUAL Message Center product. In recent years the Spanish company has looked to reposition its offerings as the distillation of knowledge, such as with its September 2012 launch of the Operations Knowledge Module for IBM i.
Alignia is a
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ManH Dives Into ‘Clienteling’ with GlobalBay Buy
August 18, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreManhattan Associates last week announced it has acquired the assets of GlobalBay Technologies to boost its omni-channel strategy with new “clienteling” capabilities. The deal with VeriFone nets ManH a collection of solutions designed to improve how retailers interact with their customers.
VeriFone’s sold a collection of offerings through its GlobalBay line that would allow smaller retailers to use their iPads to complete transactions. This included hardware like card readers, PIN pads, printers, scanners, and cash drawers. But for ManH, what likely grabbed its attention was the software side of GlobalBay, including offerings like inventory tracking, loyalty programs, and online appointment
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IBM HyperSwap And Vision Solutions: Another View
August 18, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreThe new HyperSwap functionality that debuted with IBM i 7.2 left some folks a bit puzzled as to how it fits into the overall high availability stack. Notably, an executive with logical replication software vendor Vision Solutions openly questioned whether HyperSwap furthers the HA and disaster recovery (DR) discussion at all. A Four Hundred Stuff reader weighs in on the issue.
HyperSwap is the new data resilience offering that became available this spring with PowerHA Express Edition. The technology, which IBM has been using in its System z mainframe for years, introduces a synchronous replication method that allows a production
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IBM i Job Market: Not All Doom and Gloom
August 11, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreIn early July we ran an article titled The New Normal For The IBM i Job Market, where we explored some of challenges that IBM i professionals are having in finding new jobs, particularly in California, and the structural changes that are impacting the workforce as a whole. There’s no doubt that these are tough times for many people, but those challenges also create opportunities for IBM i pros who have the ability to capitalize on them.
There are many variables that factor into the employment equation and determine whether and how people are matched up with jobs. For
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IBM Builds Brain-Like Chip With 1 Million Neurons
August 11, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreIBM scientists last week rolled out SyNAPSE, a “neurosynaptic” chip that boasts the equivalent of 1 million programmable neurons and 256 million programmable synapses. The miniscule chip could hasten the transformation of society by enabling new brain-like “neuromorphic” applications, such as helping the blind see again, and perhaps other less philanthropic adventures.
The introduction of the postage stamp-sized SyNAPSE chip, which is built on Samsung Electronic‘s 28 nanometer technology, is the culmination of a decade of research by IBM into non-von Neumann architectures, which have been the standard in computer design since 1946.
IBM says it has made a
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Big Blue-Apple: It’s All About The Apps
July 28, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreAt first glance, the partnership between IBM and Apple is a bit of a head turner. The companies have little in common, either technologically or culturally. One makes electronic gadgets for consumers and the other sells IT solutions to enterprises. But when viewed through the lens of the world’s obsession with mobile apps and Apple’s unquestioned supremacy in creating app experiences that people love, the union starts to make sense.
The central component of the deal is the 100-plus new, industry-specific apps that IBM and Apple will jointly develop for the iPhone and iPad. The applications will be natively developed
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Robot/SCHEDULE Learns More Tricks From MFT
July 28, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreThe leading independent IBM i job scheduler is getting smarter with this month’s release of Robot/SCHEDULE version 12 from HelpSystems. The new file event monitoring features added in v12 allow the job scheduler to react to file and directory events occurring on the IFS and physical file changes on the DB2 database, just like managed file transfer (MFT) products can do.
Ensuring the smooth and orderly execution of jobs is not an easy thing to do, especially in larger organizations running dozens of applications across one or more IBM i servers. When the inter-dependencies of jobs, tasks, and processes