Fast growing systems management software firm Nimsoft today is unveiling BSM Express, a new business service management (BSM) offering designed to show executives and other non-technical decision makers, via graphics and dashboards, how business is going, whether transactions are flowing as planned, and where problems in their IT infrastructure are originating. The product is delivered as part of Nimsoft’s overall systems monitoring suite, which gathers metrics from all major server platforms, including IBM i.

BSM Express is an optional add-on for the Nimsoft Monitoring Solutions (NMS) suite (formerly NimBUS) that gives graphical representations to the business functions that are executed

Unified communications does not begin or depend heavily upon voice over IP (VoIP). I wasn’t the only one confused about that. There was a time when IBM thought so, too. In the System i community, VoIP no longer is the only entry point into unified communications, which is the big picture view of integrating data with voice communications and collaboration software. VoIP was too great of a leap to make in one jump. Stepping stones are now in place.

It’s pretty clear that VoIP will eventually play a big role in business. It’s just not what it was built up

If you’re looking to improve your System i backup processes with a virtual tape library (VTL), there’s one vendor that should definitely be on your list: Falconstor. While the company keeps a low profile in the midrange space and relies heavily on OEMs (including storage big wigs IBM and EMC) to sell its product, Falconstor has quietly built a solid roster of support for the System i, and is looking to build on that in the future.

Falconstor calls its VTL a “disk-based tape emulation system,” and that’s an accurate description. Pretending to be a tape library to

Having difficulty spelling words correctly in your green-screen i OS applications? Then you might want to check out a spell checker called Spell/400 from the UK software company Black and Blue Software. Designed to function like a regular Windows spell checker, Spell/400 allows users to correct misspellings with the click of a mouse or a touch of a button, and even allows users to have their own personal dictionaries.

PC users around the world have come to rely on automated spell checkers to fix common mistakes and leave their prose looking spotless and clean. Microsoft popularized the modern computer

VAI last week announced that it will begin selling Panasonic‘s line of Toughbook computers to its ERP customers. With a magnesium alloy case, high-contrast LCD screen, and an array of wireless networking gear, Panasonic’s Toughbook line is ideal for customers who work in harsh environments.

With customers in distribution, construction, manufacturing, and other industries not necessarily known for calm, idyllic, yoga-inducing settings, VAI figured it would do well to offer customers a PC that’s as tough and resilient as the System i-based ERP system on which they have come to rely. The search ended at Panasonic, which, in addition

SEEBURGER‘s automated invoice processing system, 4invoice, has become unhooked from the company’s overarching EDI/B2B platform, and is now available as a standalone product. By pre-processing the paper-based invoices before sending them off to ERP systems, customers can slash the amount of manual work involved with invoices by up to 40 percent, the company claims.

4invoice was previously available as part of SEEBURGER’s expansive Business Integration Server (BIS), which offers a wide range of integration capabilities, from business process management and EDI to RFID and ERP application adapters. (SEEBURGER also sells an iSeries-specific version of BIS, but that’s another story.)

Sainsbury’s, one of England’s biggest grocery store chains, hopes to gain better visibility into its inventory and supply chain operations as the result of a new solution from Wesupply. The solution, which is being implemented at Sainsbury’s by IBM, will allow Sainsbury’s to monitor the status of orders across its entire network, and drive more efficiency into its supplier network.

Sainsbury’s is currently the U.K.’s third largest chain of grocery stores, and operates more than 785 “hypermarkets,” supermarkets, and convenience stores. The company has survived a series of takeover bids, and today enjoys revenue on the order of

ArcSight yesterday announced a scaled-down, pre-configured version of its security information and event management (SIEM) appliance designed for mid size companies. The vendor is calling its new solution, ArcSight Express, a “security expert in a box.”

Before the launch of ArcSight Express, the Silicon Valley firm ArcSight sold several products under its SIEM umbrella, including an Enterprise Security Management (ESM) product that’s geared toward security, a log management appliance, and various connectors for gathering log data from nearly 300 applications and platforms, including i OS (OS/400).

While the sophisticated (and expensive) SIEM products proved capable in the hands of enterprises,

HiT Software last week unveiled DBMoto 6.6, the latest release of its database migration and replication software for cross-platform data integration projects, including those involving DB2/400. With this release, HiT has improved on the product’s scalability when replicating to and from Oracle databases. MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server users also get new features.

DBMoto is a Windows-based data replication tool that offers multiple replication modes—refresh, mirroring, and synchronization–to handle different replication tasks. The software does not require programming, and uses a wizard-based process to handle initial set up. Nearly 20 different database management systems are supported by DBMoto, including IBM

DataDirect Technologies last week announced a new release of its ODBC driver, which supports all major relational database management systems, including DB2 for IBM i (DB2/400). With version 6 of DataDirect Connect for ODBC, the company has delivered enhancements in the area of application development, performance, bulk loads, and failover.

As a subsidiary of database and SOA software developer Progress Software, DataDirect Technologies is tasked with building an array of drivers and adapters that allow customers and partners to move data via ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, XQuery, SOAP, and other standards. With the amount and types of data being stored