• Calling the Shots with Flash, Disk, and Tape

  June 3, 2014 Dan Burger

  IBM‘s investment in flash storage is an indication Big Blue believes enterprise-level computing is ready for flash. One of its moves is a partnership with Tributary Systems, a company that produces a high performance virtual tape library product called Storage Director. Tributary has just released a virtual backup application called flash tape, which combines Storage Director and IBM FlashSystem storage arrays. IBM FlashSystem emphasizes performance and microsecond response times with reductions in transaction times, batch processing times, and energy consumption efficiencies. Flash tape combines speed and utility–like the creation of a 250 mph Ford Econoline van. Tape has

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• DSI Targets IBM i Shops with VTL Solutions

  June 3, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Dynamic Solutions International (DSI) last month announced that it’s targeting IBM i shops with its line of virtual tape libraries (VTLs). DSI entered the midrange radar in December when the Englewood, Colorado, company unfurled a partnership with IBM i juggernaut HelpSystems. As part of the deal, the companies planned to integrate their respective products, and jointly sell an integrated backup solution to IBM i shops. DSI’s May announcement of the new VTL solutions for IBM i shops signals that the company is ready to get down to business. That business, of course, is replacing tape drives at IBM i

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• Jinfonet Adds Geo Analysis to Reporting Software

  June 3, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Users who are interested in working with their data from a geographic standpoint will find the new version of Jinfonet Software‘s JReport to their liking. JReport version 13 introduces a new Geo Analysis component that allows users to work with and visualize their data in a geographic manner. Users can scroll up and down in the maps and see how their data stacks up by different geographic region, including cities, counties, states, and regions. JReport 13 brings the new Geo Analysis capabilities. Jinfonet says the new Geo Analysis feature, which works with maps from OpenStreetMap and Google Maps, extends

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• Textile Manufacturer Gets EDI Help from Robot

  June 3, 2014 Alex Woodie

  When Standard Textile decided to move its EDI translator from IBM i to Windows, the company knew it needed a solid way to make the new Windows-based EDI talk with its core JD Edwards system running on IBM i. The company found what it needed in the guise of the Robot/SCHEDULE software from HelpSystems. Standard Textile makes a variety of textile products–including sheets, blankets, window treatments, upholstery fabrics, uniforms, workwear, and napery–and sells them to customers all around the world. The Cincinnati, Ohio-based company is privately held, and employs about 4,000 people. About 80 percent of Standard Textile’s orders

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• BCD Spruces Up Web and Doc Management Tools

  June 3, 2014 Alex Woodie

  WebSmart customers will find a few new features aimed at programmer productivity in the version 10.2 release, which BCD Software unveiled at the recent COMMON conference in Florida. The Chicago subsidiary of Quadrant Software also updated its Catapult and Nexus Portal tools. WebSmart 10.2 brings several features that will appeal to RPG or PHP programmers; the product, you will remember, is available in both ILE and PHP versions to fit the needs of both types of customers. For starters, the WebSmart IDE now highlights matching parentheses and braces, which will make it easier for programmers to find and fix coding

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• Italian Stock Exchange Protected by Maxava

  June 3, 2014 Alex Woodie

  A critical component of the Italian Stock Exchange that runs on the IBM i server is protected from downtime by high availability software from Maxava, the software company recently revealed. Cassa di Compensazione e Garanzie (CC&G), or the Clearing and Guarantee Fund, serves as an assurance system as a central counterparty for equity markets and derivatives managed by the Italian Stock Exchange. The organization is responsible for providing efficient, secure, and accurate processing of trading, clearing, and settlement transactions on a real-time basis. “Every day CC&G keeps track of thousands of transactions,” Mauro Fonzo, head of systems management at

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• LaserVault Goes SCSI with New Backup Device

  June 3, 2014 Alex Woodie

  The ongoing flood of data and the low-cost of storage are leading customers in all industries to rethink their backup strategies. In the IBM i world, one backup vendor that’s building momentum in the field of tape displacement is Electronic Storage Corp., the Oklahoma company behind the LaserVault products. Last week, El Store announced the LaserVault UBD SCSI Express, a new edition of its Universal Backup Device product. El Store launched its first UBD appliance in late 2010 to provide IBM i and Linux customers with a low-cost and easy-to-use alternative to a virtual tape library (VTL). The appliance

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• LANSA Teaches BPI Tool New SQL, Web Services Tricks

  June 3, 2014 Alex Woodie

  IBM i is a wonder of automation. Many of the tasks that require manual effort on other systems are handled “autonomously,” to use a word from the last decade. The folks at LANSA have long been advocates for a higher state of automated being on the IBM i platform, and the company takes it to new heights with the latest release of Composer, its business process integration (BPI) tool for IBM i and Windows. LANSA Composer is a chimera that combines a drag-and-drop development interface with a data integration engine to help automate manual processes. Examples of these processes include

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• Halcyon Fills the ‘Missing Link’ with Interactive Job Log Monitoring

  June 3, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Halcyon Software claims it solved the “missing link” of IBM i message monitoring with a new interactive job log monitoring feature in the latest release of its Systems Operations Suite. The capability to monitor what interactive users do on the system will help administrators close the loop on server monitoring and get a jump on errors that could potentially corrupt data. The new job log monitor in Systems Operations Suite (SOS) allows administrators to view all application, error, and other messages relating to jobs that are currently running. Normally, this information is transient on the system, hidden from view, and

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• IBM Helps Users Find i Needles in CMOD Haystack

  June 3, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Metadata and indexes will only get you so far when you’re looking for one particular document among millions. In some scenarios, the capability to match a specific text string against an entire document repository is the only way to find that needle in a haystack. With the latest release of the Content Manager OnDemand (CMOD) for IBM i, IBM has added a powerful full-text search capability that will help users surface that hard-to-find content. Full-text search is an optional feature in CMOD for IBM i version 7.2, which IBM announced April 29 and shipped May 2. The new feature was

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