Shield Advanced Solutions hopes a new low-cost disaster recovery product unveiled last week will find a comfortable spot among small and medium-sized System i shops. Called DR4i, the new offering continuously replicates changes to i/OS data and objects to a secondary server or LPAR. The software, which is based on IBM‘s remote journaling technology, is a scaled-down, and lower-cost, version of Shield’s high availability software product.

Companies of every size need some form of DR. For most companies, the combination of tape backups and off-site vaulting of tape cartridges provide the only assurance that a server breakdown or on-site

There is a new name in the i/OS change management market: Synergivity Software. The New Hampshire-based company was founded recently to be the U.S. distributor for i/OS change management tools developed by Midrange Dynamics, which is headquartered in Switzerland. In addition to change management, Synergivity sells impact analysis and auditing software developed by Midrange Dynamics–and hopes to add other security, testing, and high availability tools to its portfolio in the future.

Synergivity Software’s flagship offering is MDCMS, the i/OS change management system developed by Midrange Dynamics. MDCMS helps customers streamline various application development lifecycle tasks, including everything from

System i database performance experts Centerfield Technology recently launched HomeRun version 7.0, the newest version of its suite of application and database optimization tools for the i/OS platform. With HomeRun version 7.0, Centerfield has overhauled AutoDBA, the suite’s automated database administrator component of the suite, to make it easier to use and to allow customers to get results quicker than before.

HomeRun is a suite of tools aimed at getting customers the highest level of performance out of their DB2/400 applications. The suite includes five integrated components (INDEX, ANALYSIS, MONITOR, RESOURCES, and SECURITY) that address various aspects of performance monitoring,

System i shops on the hunt for a managed file transfer (MFT) solution may be interested in learning about the latest release of Linoma Software‘s GoAnywhere Director. Last week the company unveiled version 3.2, which adds support for sending and receiving files using the AS2 protocol. The new release also marks a gain in the auditing department with the introduction of support for Syslog, the de-facto industry standard for handling activity logs from servers and network devices.

GoAnywhere Director is a platform-independent MFT offering first launched by Linoma about two years ago. The software, which runs on i/OS and

VAI is taking another run at the software as a service (SaaS) delivery method. Last week the company announced that it will offer a SaaS-based version of its i/OS-based ERP software suite to customers through a partnership with mindSHIFT Technologies, a managed services provider based in Massachusetts. Pricing will start at $150 per user per month.

SaaS has been on the minds of the folks at Ronkonkoma, New York-based VAI for some time. More than two years ago, the company announced a partnership with managed service provider Pragmatix to deliver its S2K application suite to customers over the Web.

TMW Systems is now shipping Innovative Enterprise Software (IES) Release 9, the latest version of the i/OS-based suite of enterprise applications for trucking firms that it obtained in its acquisition of Innovative Computing Corp. (ICC) late last year. Release 9 marks a significant overhaul in the application, which is used by about 300 companies across the country.

ICC, which operates as a subsidiary of TMW from its Nashville, Tennessee headquarters, has been talking about IES Release 9 for the last 18 months. And it’s no wonder: the update included a wholesale conversion of aging RPG III code into the

Under Armour, the $850 million maker of form-fitting athletic apparel, is a happy customer of Manhattan Associates‘ i/OS-based warehouse management system, the software vendor announced last week.

Based in Baltimore, Maryland, Under Armour became well-known for its pioneering use of compression and moisture-wicking technologies to create a T-shirt that could better regulate an athlete’s temperature, therefore leading to higher performance.

Over the years, the company’s clothing has been endorsed by many professional and collegiate athletes and athletic programs in sports ranging from football to baseball. Even soldiers and Marines based in Iraq and Afghanistan have worn the products (although

Agilysys last week announced that it is one of the vendors providing enterprise software for the massive new CityCenter complex in Las Vegas. The company also recently reported somewhat promising financial results for its fiscal fourth quarter.

CityCenter is a massive new development project located on 76 acres along the Las Vegas Strip. The controversial $11 billion project includes six new casino hotels, condominiums, restaurants, a huge parking garage, and a fire station. While construction is not yet complete, several properties officially welcomed their first guests late last year.

And like many of the other large Vegas properties, the CityCenter

Retail Technologies Corp. (RTC), a Georgia-based company that specializes in providing software and services for retailers that use the Merchandise Management System (MMS) from JDA Software Group, recently completed the installation of more than 1,300 point of sale (POS) systems for Variety Wholesalers, a retail chain of 400 stores in the Southeast, the vendor announced recently.

Based in Henderson, North Carolina, Variety Wholesalers operates more than 400 retail stores in 15 states throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States. If you have ever visited a Roses, Maxway, Bargain Town, Bill’s Dollar Store, Value Mart, Super Dollar, Super 10, or

Bug Busters Software Engineering is now shipping the version 3.2 release of its A la Carte Menu and Security System (ALC), a menu management system that allows administrators to customize the appearance of menus, as well as control access to i/OS objects.

ALC gives administrators a central place where they can manage the way that users access i/OS applications and which system objects they are allowed to use. With ALC, authorized users can create their own menus that give them quick and easy access to the applications and commands they need to get their jobs done. As a security tool,