Kisco Gives i OS Auditing Tool a Web Makeover

July 21, 2009 Alex Woodie

Kisco Information Systems customers can now audit for unauthorized or unexpected changes to i OS data files from the comfort of a Web browser interface with the latest release of iFileAudit . With iFileAudit Release 3, the product is no longer tied to the 5250 interface, a change that will be most helpful in setting up the product’s filtering mechanisms. Also, Kisco recently celebrated its 25th anniversary in the IBM midrange business.

iFileAudit is a handy journaling tool launched several years ago by Kisco, a developer and provider of security, reporting, and communications tools based in Upstate New York. iFileAudit taps into the System i’s powerful journaling function to provide a complete record of changes made at the field, record, and file levels. In addition to identifying these changes, the product tells the user about the user profile, the program, the location, or the job involved in the change made to the data, allowing auditors or other interested parties to get a complete picture of the activities surrounding System i data.

Prior to this release, customers could only interact with iFileAudit through the 5250 green-screen interface. This worked fine for people who have experience working with the platform. But now that iFileAudit features a graphical, Web-based interface, it can be utilized by people less familiar with the 5250 green -screen interface, or those who simply prefer a graphical interface to a text-based one, such as auditors who aren’t very familiar with the System i system.

Some things are simply easier to do in the browser-based version for the iFileAudit interface, says Kisco president Rich Loeber. “We found that it is much easier to use the filter functions provided to track down and locate specific records,” Loeber says via e-mail. “This particular ability is much better than what is available in the terminal version of the software.”

There are some iFileAudit functions that can only be accessed through the green screen. These include record key maintenance; the display journal attributes function; the journal reset function; purging the anlysis history files; the capability to register, activate, or de-activate multiple files for journaling in a single operation; and report printing function. However, these are mostly support functions, and Kisco plans to include them in the browser with future releases of the product, Loeber says.

Auditors and administrators can view changes made to particular DB2/400 files from the comfort of a Web browser with Kisco’s iFileAudit Release 3.

Other new features added with Release 3 include: an automatic file analysis process that simplifies periodic history processing; the capability to generate historical reports from archived history; separation of the default journals into their own library for easier journal maintenance; support for selecting existing logical file structure keys on files with no inherent key structure; and an improved historical data export feature for end user reporting.

Kisco also recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Back when Loeber founded the company in 1984, in Mt. Kisco, New York, the firm concentrated primarily on providing consulting services for S/36 servers. That focus on services gradually shifted to product development, and today the company, which is now based in Saranac Lake, New York, concentrates almost entirely on products for the i OS server. For the complete quarter century of Kisco history, check out Loeber’s remembrances at www.kisco.com/Founders/25-1.htm.

iFileAudit Release 3 is available now. Licenses costs $1,295 per server, or $2,195 to run the product on an unlimited number of logical partitions on a single server. For more information, see www.kisco.com.