• Bytware Becomes More Friendly to LPM with Messenger Product

  March 5, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Bytware has introduced a new version of its Messenger suite of systems management tools that is more compatible with Live Partition Mobility (LPM), the new virtualization technology that IBM introduced last year. With Messenger 8, Bytware has introduced a new licensing scheme that is better able to track where the software is actually running, and therefore whether the customer has exceeded his license allotment. LPM is an important new piece of virtualization technology that IBM debuted last spring with IBM i 7.1 Technology Refresh (TR) 4. The PowerVM feature allows organizations to move IBM i logical partitions (LPARs) around without

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• McAfee Works with Raz-Lee to Monitor DB2 for i

  March 5, 2013 Alex Woodie

  The IBM i pros at Raz-Lee Security are working with counterparts at security giant McAfee to integrate portions of Raz-Lee’s iSecurity suite with McAfee’s enterprise security solutions–specifically, its Database Activity Monitor (DAM) solution. The work will extend DAM to include DB2 for IBM i monitoring capabilities that are not currently offered by McAfee. McAfee offers a range of database-related solutions for enterprise customers running relational database management systems, such as DB2 for LUW, Oracle, SQL Server, and MySQL. This includes Vulnerability Manager, which scans databases for more than 45,000 known threats; Virtual Patching, which detects and prevents intrusions at the

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• BCD Waves its Modernization Wand with Presto 4.5

  March 5, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Creating custom Web interfaces from existing 5250 screens should be a little bit easier when using the latest release of Business Computer Design Int’l. Presto. With version 4.5, Web 2.0 elements such as drop down boxes can be added quickly through a drag-and-drop motion in its GUI editor. Other enhancements to the product include faster response times, support for charts in iOS devices, and better subfile rendering. Presto is an on-the-fly GUI generator for green-screen interfaces that debuted in 2008. The software works by intercepting the 5250 data streams associated with IBM i application and system screens, generating HTML versions

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• Does Working At Home Really Work?

  March 4, 2013 Jenny Thomas

  When Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer recently dropped the bomb that she was ending work-from-home arrangements beginning this June, telecommuters around the world held their breath. Was it time to close up the home office? Although Mayer’s decision has re-ignited the debate about the pros and cons of telecommuting, whether or not it is a good idea to allow employees to work at home seems to depend on who you talk to. Here in the IT Jungle, telecommuting has been our way of life since our inception back in 1996. In my experience, working from home is not for

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• COMMON Hopes Everything Is Bigger in Texas

  March 4, 2013 Dan Burger

  Computers and the Internet have been important drivers in long distance education, which serves a purpose when time away from the IT department and tight budgets prevent travel. But most educators and students believe in the classroom education leads to greater success. A traditional classroom environment, hands-on lab sessions, as well as the networking with your peers are why people get excited to attend the COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition, which is coming up April 7 through 10 in Austin, Texas. The COMMON conference, or simply COMMON, as most people refer to it, is a special event–the largest gathering

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• New ERP Installs Get Mixed Returns, Panorama Says

  March 4, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Implementing an ERP system is a notoriously difficult thing to do. By some estimates, more than 60 percent of ERP implementations are doomed to fail. And yet, companies continue to adopt them, because. . . well, they have to. The ERP watchers at Panorama Consulting recently checked into the state of enterprise software implementations with its annual ERP report, which detected the requisite unhappiness in recent ERP adopters, but also found some satisfied customers, too. From September to January, Panorama Consulting corralled 172 of its customers onto its website to take a survey about their recent ERP installations. The company

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• IBM Server Partners Get Extra Incentives, IBM i Scores Another Supply Chain Win

  March 4, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM hosted its PartnerWorld Leadership Conference in Las Vegas last week, and there was lots of talk about cloud, mobile, and big data, as is the case with everything Blue and Big these days. But IBM wanted to give a couple of shouts out to the partners in who peddle products that come out of its Systems and Technology Group, and outlined a number of actions it was taking specifically to help partners push more Power Systems and PureSystems iron. Specifically, IBM told partners that it would: Increase its dedicated channel sales and technical sales specialists by 50 percent in

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• Reader Feedback On Big Blue Jacks SWMA For IBM i, Application RISC Machine System/500

  March 4, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hi, Timothy: What I am guessing IBM is referring to in your story, Big Blue Jacks Software Maintenance Prices For IBM i, with the “45 other products” covered by SWMA are the Licensed Program Products (LPPs) that most i clients use. It is rare for a machine running a business app to not use a combination of WebSphere Development Studio, iSeries Access, Query/400, SQL Kit, Performance Tools, BRMS, etc. However IBM does not charge extra maintenance for these products. Compare that to a Windows or Unix system, where you have to buy all these features as standalone products from

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• The Server Racket Holds Its Own In The Fourth Quarter

  March 4, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The server business is sputtering a bit with the economic uncertainty out there, but it has, at least according to the numbers coming out of Gartner last week, put the Great Recession a few miles back in the rear view mirror and is holding its own despite all of the wrenching changes going on in the data center these days. We may be witnessing another big wave of a virtualization of another kind, where new applications don’t end up in our own data centers, but in someone else’s, and therefore some of the server sales shift from your data center

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• Mad Dog 21/21: If You Want Cheap Cloud Backup, Raise Your ARM

  March 4, 2013 Hesh Wiener

  If you are using a smartphone, tablet or PC, you can back up data to the cloud, 5 gigs or more, for free using Dropbox,Evernote, Google Drive, or Microsoft Skydrive. Want more capacity? It’s cheap. Want to share stuff among your machines or with others? Easy. Security? Pretty good even before you encrypt. Compare this with IBM’s backup schemes for an IBM i shop. You could write a book about your experience: Fifty Shades of Blue. But do it fast, because disruption may be imminent, and you don’t want to get caught with

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