Perhaps the biggest challenge of maintaining an OS/400 high availability implementation is dealing with out-of-synch conditions. When a file or an object on the backup system doesn’t match up with the corresponding file or object on the primary system, an OS/400 shop risks losing data when a failover is performed. iTera says it has created new technology with the latest release of its Echo2 high availability software that makes worrying about such conditions a thing of the past.

Last week, iTera unveiled Echo2 version 4.2, which the company started selling October 1. This release contains several “autonomic” functions, which is

iSeries shops will have another option when it comes to obtaining native OS/400 anti-virus software next month when Raz-Lee Security is expected to ship iSecurity Anti-Virus. The new software, which is currently undergoing beta tests, is designed to prevent the iSeries’ Integrated File System (IFS)–and the Windows clients accessing the IFS–from becoming infected with viruses, Trojan horses, and other types of malicious code.

There’s a common misperception in the OS/400 community that the iSeries is immune to viruses. In fact, security professionals for the platform prefer to say that the iSeries is virus “resistant,” which reflects the fact that, while

We universally accept the fact that it’s dangerous to run with sharp objects like scissors. People do nevertheless, and occasionally get hurt. And while it’s risky to go live with newly written software before knowing how it will behave under heavy loads, lots of development shops take the chance. Ironically, load testing is most often left to customers, dealers, salesmen, and others who, for reasons of transacting routine business, interact with skittish new systems at their own peril.

Such was the case for a small 100-year-old scissor maker that had based a century of success on quality and accountability. Two

Following the lead of the consumer packaged goods industry’s UCCnet initiative, the Alcohol Beverage Industry’s Electronic Commerce Council (ABI EC) is now pushing for its members to adopt product data synchronization to drive greater efficiency in this supply chain. While this industry poses unique challenges for product data synchronization, progress is being made, particularly at Glazer’s Wholesale Drug, a Texas distributor that implemented LANSA‘s Data Sync Direct product on an OS/400 server, and became one of the first companies to comply with ABI’s request.

The rationale behind efforts to standardize and synchronize data about consumer packaged goods is well