Things used to be simpler for buyers of i5/OS high availability software. While there were more HA vendors to chose from, most of the vendors’ offerings were relatively similar. Now, buyers must be able to navigate not only logical journaling and clustering, but newer, more exotic approaches, like switched disk, cross-site mirroring (XSM), and hardware-based replication. Vision Solutions, the only remaining HA heavyweight ISV, will be looking to clarify customer choice in 2008, and in some cases will advocate a hybrid approach that blends these IBM technologies with its own.

For the last few years, most of the growth

When i5/OS security software vendor PowerTech held its inaugural iNSIGHT user conference last year, it was open only to PowerTech customers, and focused heavily on PowerTech products. Due to growing demand for i5/OS security information from non-customers, the iNSIGHT 2008 show to be held in Las Vegas next month will be open to just about anybody who wants to learn about the latest in System i security, and will include a preview of security changes in i5/OS V6R1.

No matter what the platform, security is a hot topic in IT today. The growing insecurity felt by businesses and other organizations

System i shops concerned about their servers’ built-in batteries failing, leaving them with an iSeries server with reduced capacity, can rest easy thanks to a new battery-monitoring solution from CCSS that automatically alerts them to failing batteries. The new capability, which was added to QSystem Monitor, makes it considerably easier to check the state of the server’s batteries than using the operating system’s facilities.

There are many aspects to the System i architecture that separate it from so-called “standards-based” servers, including the single level storage architecture that treats disk and memory as a single, virtualized chunk of storage. One of

While there are many upsides to document management technology, the capability it provides users to generate practically any document with a just few keystrokes–such as printing oneself a bonus check from the company’s coffers–is a powerful invitation for fraud. Quadrant Software recently addressed this problem (if not the temptation) with Formtastic 5.4.1, a December release of its i5/OS-based document management solution that introduces new auditing tools designed to make business’ data, documents, and dollars, more secure.

Formtastic is a widely used and mature suite of i5/OS and Windows software products designed to merge variable print stream data originating from System

Help/Systems has acquired one of its partners and product distributors, eveLogic Group of England. With the acquisition, Help/Systems, which uses a direct sales approach in North America, gains more control over the sale of its i5/OS systems management and business intelligence products in the European and Asia-Pacific markets.

From its headquarters in southern England and regional offices in France and Australia, eveLogic Group provided sales and support for the range of Help/Systems products, including the Robot Automated Suite and the Sequel and Abstract business intelligence and programmer productivity tools that Help/Systems obtained with its acquisition of Advanced Systems Concepts in

Robbins Sports Surfaces, a manufacturer of maple and synthetic sports flooring based in Cincinnati, Ohio, has signed an agreement with TDCI to license BuyDesign Configurator, a sales tool designed to make it easier for employees to select, configure, and price products, the software company announced last month.

TDCI, which is based in Columbus, Ohio, has two main software products, including the Mac-Pac ERP suite, which runs on the i5/OS platform, and BuyDesign, a suite of tools designed to make it easier to do business with manufacturers.

With BuyDesign Configurator, TDCI aims to allow manufacturers to streamline the ordering and configuration

The Navixa aviation management system from Pathix is being moved from i5/OS to Windows .NET with the help of Visual RPG and Monarch, a suite of modernization and migration tools developed by ASNA, the software company announced yesterday.

Navixa is used by airlines and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) companies to manage the operation, repair, and overhaul of aircraft flying in and out of airports around the world. The software is used to track all aspects of airplane maintenance, from materials and work orders, to finances and flight operations.

Pathix, which is based in St. John’s, Canada, originally developed

System i development tool maker Magic Software has sold its Advanced Answers on Demand (AOD) subsidiary to Fortissimo Capital for $17 million, the software company announced in late 2007.

AOD develops a suite of applications, also called AOD, that are targeted at the long-term care industry, including retirement and continuing care facilities, home health, and rehabilitation agencies. The AOD suite was developed in Magic’s fourth-generation language, eDeveloper, and runs on Windows servers. AOD is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, while Magic Software is headquartered in Israel, and has U.S. headquarters in Irvine, California.

The sale of the AOD subsidiary to

eSipo Technology, a Mexican developer of i5/OS-based ERP applications, has tapped LANSA and its RAMP suite of tools to help it modernize its 5250 applications.

eSipo Technology, which is based in Monterrey, Mexico, develops a suite of business applications called eSipo Logistic that is aimed at meeting the warehousing, logistics, and distribution needs of manufacturers and other companies. Some of the companies using eSipo Logistics include Logisti, Grupo Onest, Best Logistics Group (BLG), Oko, Ferraro de Mexico, and Grisi Hermanos.

Eduardo Esquivel, president of eSipo Technology, says his customers have grown tired of the green screen. “The main motive

Companies looking to implement an AS2 EDI communications system in 2008 would be wise to check out the latest round of certifications from the Drummond Group, a private company that tests third-party EDI and business communication products for accuracy interoperability.

Twice a year, Rik Drummond and his team at Drummond Group load the latest AS2 products sent to them by software vendors, and tests them to make sure they accurately encode, transmit, and unpack the EDI transactions as they’re sent over the HTTP/S protocol.

In late December, Drummond Group posted the results for the test conducted during the third