• In Server Consolidations, Knowledge Means Power

  June 15, 2004 Alex Woodie

  Before jumping onto the server consolidation bandwagon and leaving all those Wintel boxes behind, it behooves the good administrator to do his homework first. Accurately monitoring your applications’ consumption of server, storage, and network resources can mean the difference between a server consolidation project that ends like the one in IBM‘s new i5 TV commercial, and slinking into the CIO’s office to request another $100,000. A new service from DYS Analytics helps eliminate guesswork in Domino server consolidations. When done correctly, many benefits can be gained from server consolidation projects, including simplified administration, reduced costs, and simpler, more scalable

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• Lakeview Says XSM Shows Promise As Young Technology for HA

  June 15, 2004 Alex Woodie

  The latest release of OS/400 contains a new high availability capability called Cross Site Mirroring (XSM), which gives iSeries shops an entirely new way to replicate data to off-site backup machines. XSM allows you to mirror one independent Auxiliary Storage Pool to another on a remote machine. Lakeview Technology is supporting XSM with its own OS/400 mirroring software, called MIMIX, and says XSM shows promise as a technology, just like remote journaling before it. IBM has been enhancing its independent Auxiliary Storage Pool technology over the last several releases of OS/400. An iASP is useful because it allows a disk

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• Moving Beyond RPG: mrc-Productivity Series Evolves Openness

  June 15, 2004 Alex Woodie

  Michaels, ross & cole has officially opened the kimono. The longtime provider of an OS/400 fourth generation language (4GL) development environment is in the early stages of rolling out a new flagship development environment that can live on any platform. While the new tools don’t yet have a formal name, and won’t generate RPG, they will be largely based on the established mrc-Productivity Series development environment, and feel equally at home running on OS/400, Unix, Windows, and Linux platforms. The mrc-Productivity Series was traditionally a menu-driven 4GL development environment that programmers used from a green screen. In 2002, mrc expanded

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• Bowstreet Brings ‘Portlet Factory’ to iSeries

  June 15, 2004 Alex Woodie

  Java tools maker Bowstreet last week announced OS/400 support in its Portlet Factory for WebSphere, a rapid application development tool for creating Web-based portal applications. As its name suggests, Portlet Factory for WebSphere works with IBM‘s WebSphere Portal Server Express software, running on an iSeries or other server platforms, and enables the rapid development and delivery of customizable portal applications, all without Java programming. OS/400 shops don’t need Bowstreet’s Portlet Factory to develop the various applications that make up a portal, which are also called portlets. They can use IBM’s standard WebSphere Studio tools to do that. But in

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• ReorgWizard Fills a Need for Speed with New ‘Reverse’ Feature

  June 8, 2004 Alex Woodie

  DCSoftware is shipping a new version of ReorgWizard that includes a new “reverse reorg” feature, which, the company says, can make OS/400 file reorganizations run substantially faster. By starting a file reorg from the last records at the bottom of a file, users of ReorgWizard Version 3.0 should be able to run file reorgs in one-third of the time, and, depending on the condition of the files, possibly up to 90 percent faster, company officials say. To maximize application response time and to make the most out of available DASD, OS/400 system administrators use a common housekeeping task, called a

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• Linoma Targets Programmer Productivity with RPG Toolbox 3.2

  June 8, 2004 Alex Woodie

  Like a good carpenter, any programmer worth his salt relies on tools to make his job easier and to bring ideas to reality. In the case of RPG, Linoma Software sells a bundle of productivity tools called, appropriately enough, the RPG Toolbox. A new release of the RPG Toolbox is shipping this month that should make programmers more productive through enhancements to its three components: RPG Wizard, SEU Plus, and Source Snippets. With the new Compile Analyzer included with the SEU Plus component of RPG Toolbox Version 3.2, programmers can eliminate time wasted looking at compile errors, the Omaha, Nebraska,

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• QSystem Monitor Has an Ear for Application Availability

  June 8, 2004 Alex Woodie

  New software from systems management specialist CCSS continuously monitors select OS/400 applications to ensure their availability. The latest release of QSystem Monitor, Version 11, has the capability to “listen” to Internet applications that use TCP/IP. If the “listener” becomes inactive, indicating a possible problem, the QSystem Monitor immediately notifies the systems administrator with a flashing bar on his graphical console. QSystem Monitor is a client/server application that shows system administrators how their iSeries servers are using system resources, such as database CPU, interactive processing per logical partition, or I/O. In total, the product simultaneously monitors 43 performance metrics (including 21

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• NetIQ Goes ‘Holistic’ with New Security Management Suite

  June 8, 2004 Alex Woodie

  NetIQ this quarter will begin shipping a new collection of security software it intends to be the focal point of its users’ security strategy. The Silicon Valley company’s new Security Management Suite, which is a collection of updates of security products it developed or acquired from PentaSafe a year and a half ago, as well as new capabilities it gleaned from new partners, will work with other security “point” solutions, while addressing compliance issues, such as HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley. NetIQ makes the argument that companies are spending so much time administering point solutions, such as firewalls and antivirus software, that

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• Access OS/400 Servers from Wireless BlackBerry Devices

  June 1, 2004 Alex Woodie

  BlackBerry, meet your iSeries. Epoch Integration, a developer of management software for the wireless BlackBerry devices made by Research In Motion, recently launched a new version of its NeedTEXT Shell terminal emulation software that allows users to access, monitor, and manage OS/400 servers through a secure command line interface displayed on their BlackBerry screens. Epoch’s NeedTEXT Shell customers historically have been Unix and Linux users, but some of its customers had OS/400 servers they wanted to access or manage through their BlackBerries, say Epoch officials. The company responded with NeedTEXT Shell Version 3.0, which introduces a new feature

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• IBM Introduces Integration Software to the Midmarket

  June 1, 2004 Alex Woodie

  Acknowledging that integration application problems can effect small and midsized businesses as well as large enterprises, IBM last month announced WebSphere Business Integration Server Express, a new software product for streamlining business processes from disparate applications and databases running across OS/400, Linux, and Windows servers. IBM also introduced three new Express offerings for specific integration problems, including UCCnet data synchronization, sending and receiving message queues, and connecting to electronic trading networks. WebSphere Business Integration Server Express 4.3 is a pre-packaged integration broker offering designed to make it easier for small and midsized businesses to gain the advantages of internal application

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