Coglin Mill is close to shipping a new release of its RODIN extract, transform, and load (ETL) tool for building data warehouses on the IBM i server. With the upcoming release of RODIN version 7.2, the company will include a connector for loading customers’ Salesforce.com data into their IBM i analytics engines. Coglin Mill has also improved the product in the areas of slowly changing dimensions, user defined functions, and real-time ETL.

Coglin Mill already supports the most widely used databases with its RPG-based RODIN tool, including DB2/400, DB2 for LUW, Sybase, SQL Server, and Oracle‘s 11g and

Infor is launching a cloud version of its Lawson M3 ERP system targeted at companies that track and manage pieces of heavy equipment. The new cloud, called Infor Equipment, is the product of Infor partnerships with IBM and Velocity Technology Solutions, an established cloud hosting provider with lots of experience running and managing IBM i ERP systems.

Infor is relying on standard cloud math to help attract new and existing M3 customers to the Infor Equipment cloud. Standard cloud math says that CFOs and CEOs dislike the big upfront capital outlays, long timeframes, and risks that are inherent in

The Web may be on every desktop, but smartphones are in everyone’s pockets, from truck drivers to forklift operators. If you’re not already developing Web and mobile applications, chances are you will soon. Joe Pluta (Pluta Brothers Design) and Shannon O’Donnell (IBM i App Store) take you through the benefits of developing applications from IBM i on either the Android and iOS platforms. (Editor’s note: Joe and Shannon, by the way, are speaking on Android and iOS development, respectively, at the upcoming IBM i DevCon conference.)

Android and (IBM) i: A Match Made in Development Heaven

Application lifecycle management vendor Remain Software has broadened the scope of its change management software known as TD/OMS. The software, which has been rewritten in Java, now supports Solaris and Mac OS application development environments along with the IBM i, Windows, Linux, and Unix environments supported by the previous release.

As before, it also supports popular fourth-generation languages (4GLs) for the IBM i platform, including LANSA‘s RDML, CA‘s 2E and Plex, AS/SET, and Magic Software‘s 4GL. And Remain Software provides support for automatic deployment to the Tomcat and Websphere application servers.

The latest piece for the TD/OMS

Websites created with the latest version 3.0 release of the Joomla content management system should look the same whether they’re accessed from a smartphone, tablet, or PC. What’s more, the use of the Twitter Bootstrap is also expected to enforce greater internal consistency across Joomla extensions that power segments of individual websites. The update, which is free, gives IBM i shops another choice for delivering Web and mobile content from IBM i servers. Twitter Bootstrap is an open source framework of tools designed to make Web development faster and easier. The software, which was originally developed by the folks behind

Cybele Software last week announced the general availability (GA) of z/Scope Anywhere 7.0, a new version of its terminal emulator for accessing IBM i, zSeries, and Unix hosts from Web browsers. Version 7.0 boasts a complete rewrite in HTML5 and JavaScript, which will deliver consistent experiences across the myriad PCs, smartphones, and tablets that are in use today.

HTML5 is the first new version of Hypertext Markup Language since HTML4 debuted way back in 1999. Obviously, a lot has changed since then, most notably the use of rich media and graphic capabilities in websites, and the rapid proliferation of handheld

Storagepipe Solutions last week announced it has launched a new “brand” that’s dedicated to cloud backup solutions for IBM servers, including IBM i, AIX, z/OS, and Linux machines. The branding change hints at new stuff to come from Storagepipe.

Storagepipe has been providing online backup and recovery solutions for IBM i servers for more than 10 years. The Toronto, Ontario, company uses Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) infrastructure to back up IBM servers. It also provides business continuity services, server replication and failover services, and data- and e-mail-archiving solutions for IBM hosts, Windows, Unix, and VMware machines.

The new brand doesn’t

Brooks Internet Software and DocuWare unveiled a partnership last week that will enable Brooks’ print driver software to serve output from hosts like IBM i, Unix, and mainframe servers into DocuWare’s enterprise content management (ECM) system.

The Brooks-DocuWare partnership involves Brooks Remote Print Manager (RPM), a Line Printer Daemon (LPD) print server that provides more flexibility in the management and handling of the print output of IBM i, mainframe, HP3000, OpenVMS, Unix, and Linux servers. The Windows-based software is commonly used to convert print output from IBM formats, like SCS or AFPDS, to more standard formats like PCL and PDF,

As backup volumes grow, so too must the servers that drive the backups. To that end, backup appliance vendor STORServer last week announced upgrades to three of its product lines that will bring bigger, beefier hardware to bear on customers’ backup workloads.

STORServer sells integrated appliances that include all the hardware and software needed to successfully back up one’s data. The Colorado Springs, Colorado, company’s offerings have a decidedly blue tint to them, in that it builds its appliances on IBM X64 servers and powers them with IBM’s Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) software. It also includes a nice management GUI

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has signed a contract with Fresche Legacy (formerly Speedware) to convert key real estate management and water quality monitoring applications from RPG to .NET so that they can run on X64-based Hewlett-Packard servers instead of Power-based IBM i servers.

The LADWP is a major figure and a prognosticator in the western water wars of the last century. The city department owns vast swaths of land extending hundreds of miles north of Los Angeles into the Sierra Nevada mountains, and more importantly, the water rights that go with the land.

Much of the