• Mainline Buys Systems Integrator CompServ

  June 2, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Two weeks ago, server reseller Mainline Information Systems, of Tallahassee, Florida, acquired fellow reseller Cornerstone Systems, of Irvine, California, bringing together two of IBM‘s largest server resellers and two companies with particular expertise in mainframes and Power-based servers. Last week, Mainline reached across its home state of Florida and snapped up reseller and systems integrator CompServ. CompServ, which is located in the Tampa suburb called Clearwater and which was founded in 1998, is an IBM reseller that pushes i5/OS, AIX, and Linux platforms as well as IBM’s storage products, but which does not, like Mainline or

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• Interesting Mods and Add-Ons for Office Blade Servers

  June 2, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Way back in the day, I think maybe when I was a baby–I mean that literally–the idea of office computers had as much to do with office as it did with computer. Despite the fact that they included a whole lot of electromechanical whooziwhatits and thingamabobs, vendors like IBM tried to create computers and workstations (that used to be where you sat to use the computer, not at a machine) that blended in with the colorful and trendy offices of the time. With the advent of rack-based server computing, small and medium businesses could not deploy lots of gear in

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• Tape Backup: Obviously, a Whole Lot Greener than Disk Backup

  June 2, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Some technologies are very hard to kill. Long before there was disk, there was tape, and the ridiculously cheap disk capacity that is available has allowed many companies to do their archiving on disk-based archiving systems that look like tape to servers even if they are not. But using disk-based archiving comes at a very high operational cost. Disks need to spin to be useful, but once a tape has data archived on it, it pretty much stops using power until it is specifically required to get a bit of data for an application or to archive another data set.

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• IBS Issues New Shares to Raise Capital, Reorganizes Operations

  June 2, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Swedish ERP software provider International Business Systems, a long time supporter of the OS/400 and i5/OS platform, has announced that it is working with investors to issue new shares in the company as a means of building up a pile of cash that will fuel its ongoing reorganization efforts and gird its loins to do battle globally against its competitors in the midrange market. Back at the end of April, IBS said in an announcement in Europe that it was proposing to raise as much as 400 million Swedish krona (around $68 million at exchange rates last week) through

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• It’s Training and Education Time: OCEAN Conference Set for June 30

  June 2, 2008 Dan Burger

  Career accomplishments don’t just roll off the turnip truck while you’re standing by the side of the road waiting for promotions and pay raises. People who work hard and work smart are usually the ones being rewarded. In most cases, those that succeed professionally actively seek education and training opportunities. In Southern California, one of those opportunities is right around the corner. At the end of June, the OCEAN User Group of Southern California hosts its annual technical conference featuring a full day of sessions specific to the new IBM Power Systems, System i, iSeries, and AS/400 business computing environment.

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• Paglo Aims to be the Google of IT Management

  May 27, 2008 Alex Woodie

  Paglo today started the public beta of its new hosted IT management offering that’s designed to help IT professionals do their jobs more efficiently by employing the Web’s original breakthrough technology–search–to cross organizational boundaries to solve common IT problems. With a simple Web-based GUI, a blend of commercial open source and SaaS business models, and a successful private beta, Paglo just might live up to its billing as the Google of IT management. The premise of Paglo is quiet simple, according to Brian de Haaff, chief executive officer of the company, which is based in Palo Alto, California. Namely, it

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• RPG Programmer Avoids ‘Learn Java or Flip Burgers’ Pitfall

  May 27, 2008 Dan Burger

  Brad Bauer remembers the “Learn Java or Flip Burgers” warning that IBM gave to RPG programmers years ago. It’s funny to him. He took several Java classes and created some rudimentary applications, he never became a Java advocate and he didn’t abandon his IT career for a job at McDonald’s. Instead, he looked for a Java alternative–one that seemed intuitive to him as an RPG programmer. His search eventually led him to ASNA‘s Visual RPG (AVR) for Microsoft Visual Studio. What prompted Bauer’s dangerous liaison with Java and subsequent search for a less painful programming experience is a familiar

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• Lieberman Adds i OS Support to Password Program

  May 27, 2008 Alex Woodie

  Organizations struggling to keep their users from forgetting their passwords while maintaining an acceptable level of authentication may want to check out the latest release of Lieberman Software‘s Random Password Manager. The software automatically generates random passwords for users, while providing them a way to recover their passwords from a hardware-encrypted location when passwords are forgotten. With the introduction of support for i (formerly i5/OS) and z/OS with version 4, the product can now be used in enterprise IBM shops. Random Password Manager is designed to protect organizations from a catastrophic compromise of their IT infrastructure’s security. Lieberman says

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• KST Offers DataTrigger to Protect DB2/400 Files

  May 27, 2008 Alex Woodie

  There are many different ways to secure data residing on an i OS-based server. From exit point programs and field-level encryption to firewalls and limiting powerful user profiles, there are as many protection techniques as there are ways to access the server. KST Software, an Israeli developer of i OS utilities, recently launched a new i OS security tool called DataTrigger that offers another approach: using DB2/400’s trigger technology to detect attempts to access specified files. Two of the most powerful data protection techniques available to i OS-based Power Systems users are triggers and journaling, according to KST Software

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• Kisco Clamps Down on FTP Exposure with SafeNet/400

  May 27, 2008 Alex Woodie

  Interested in restricting which objects users can and cannot access via FTP, and which IP addresses they can FTP files to? If so, then you might be interested in the latest release of SafeNet/400 from Kisco Information Systems, which has implemented object-level security controls with version 8.5. Since Kisco broke ground more than 12 years ago with the launch of the AS/400 industry’s first exit point monitoring program with SafeNet/400, the Internet has grown exponentially more dangerous. Kisco has also gained a lot of competitors in what has become a crowded market. But with the latest release of SafeNet/400,

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