It was with great fanfare earlier this month that IBM unveiled its updated Power Systems hardware and software lineup. Updated servers with better memory, I/O, and networking connections, along with a Technology Refresh of the IBM i OS and supporting software cast gave IBM i customers a lot to chew on. And there was even a new Power Systems-based cloud solution unveiled. Could this finally be the AS/400-based cloud everybody’s been waiting for?

Alas, no. The great white hope from Big Blue remains just that: all hope and no reality. Dig a little deeper into IBM’s October 12 cloud announcement

When it comes to data warehousing, there are still some in the IBM i community who think that workload belongs on Windows or Unix boxes. But with its integrated database, huge scalability, and fair DASD costs, there are no good reasons today why the IBM i server can’t perform this function. And with the latest release of its extract, transform, and load (ETL) software, the folks at Coglin Mill are giving customers an important tool for enabling the IBM i server to be the workhorse of their data warehouses.

There’s no better way to get Alan Jordan’s goad than to

There’s nothing worse than loose or wobbly financials. Your company’s core business could be running along great, just the picture of order and efficiency, yet be overshadowed by the mess that is your general ledger, AP, AR, and related processes. UNIT4 CODA, which touts itself as a provider of best-in-breed accounting software, hopes to help its customers get a handle on their financials with the 12th major revision of its flagship Coda Financials software, codenamed “Destination: Control.”

Coda Financials is a Java-based application that includes general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, project accounting, billing, budgeting and forecasting, spend management,

Townsend Security‘s managed file transfer (MFT) software for IBM i now sports OpenPGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption capabilities, the company announced last week. Alliance FTP Manager version 5.3 gives customers the option of using the new open source PGP feature or the pre-existing enterprise-level PGP feature based on software licensed from PGP Corp. (now owned by Symantec). Better reporting and file-scan features round out this release.

Alliance FTP Manager is a well-established secure file transfer solution that has been providing MFT capabilities to IBM i shops for years–well before the term “MFT” became so popular. The software historically

ERP vendor International Business Systems (IBS), which was recently acquired by Symphony Technology Group, made a slew of aggressive product launches at its annual global user group conference this month. In one fell swoop, the embattled software vendor launched a hosted cloud environment for IBS Enterprise, unveiled new mobile interfaces for its ERP software, announced new sales and operations planning and performance management products, and debuted a new application exchange for customers.

It’s been a tough few years for IBS, the Swedish ERP application developer that was bought this June by the Silicon Valley-based private equity group STG for

Rocket Software and its Seagull subsidiary are “100 percent committed” to using Rational Open Access: RPG Edition software to help customers modernize and extend their 5250 applications, a senior Rocket product manager told IT Jungle last week, putting to rest any question regarding the company’s support and future plans for using the IBM technology.

“Rocket Software is 100 percent committed to OA:RPG,” Sam Elias, Rocket vice president and general manager of application development, integration, and modernization, said via email last week. “As is our standard practice, we have not yet publicly announced the features for our next release of LegaSuite

LANSA is trying to gauge the health of the global IBM i community in its iPulse survey, which is currently in its second year. If you’re interesting in participating–and who wouldn’t be, considering LANSA is giving away three iPad 2s–you have until October 31 to fill out the questionnaire.

LANSA is trying to top last year’s inaugural iPulse survey, which attracted 1,700 individual participants from IBM i shops in 50 countries and set a baseline for comparison for this year’s questions. The questions LANSA is asking include:

• What is the “threat level” is to the IBM i platform in your

ExaGrid Systems last week announced that its disk-to-disk (D2D) backup and data deduplication appliance now works in IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) environments.

ExaGrid sells a line of Linux-based backup appliances that feature RAID-protected SATA drives connected to servers via NAS. The appliances feature byte-level data dedupe routines can shrink the size of daily backups by 20 to 50 times, according to the vendor. Customers can replicate data among multiple ExaGrid appliances connected through its “grid,” providing disaster recovery capabilities.

When IT Jungle talked to ExaGrid just over a year ago to discuss its new support for backing up IBM

Railroad companies that use ALK Technologies software to route their trains will appreciate the new AutoRouter function available in PC*MILER|Rail 18, which enables companies to avoid or favor certain railroad interchanges.

PC*MILER|Rail is a Windows-based routing, mileage, and mapping application that’s used by many of the largest railroad companies in North America. The software automates many aspects of routing and scheduling railcar deliveries–such as fuel calculations, managing equipment, rail car mileage auditing, carrier selection, rate determination and negotiation, and ad valorem tax reporting.

PC*MILER|Rail has six routing methods, including shortest, practical, fuel surcharge, auto racks, intermodal, and coal/bulk. With Release

IT Jungle‘s executive managing editor Dan Burger last week wrote: “But if all the manuals are Web-based, what will I do with all that space on my book shelves?” More importantly, what will you do when you are trying to work out why your Internet is down? Or, as often happens to me, working on a server in a DC screened for mobile signals and with no Internet access at the machine?

Even more importantly: have you USED the IBM support portal? Unusable results and a clunky interface mean that even IBMers use Google to find stuff. It has