Not all jQuery plug-ins are hard to implement and use.
In the last article, I presented you with a jQuery plug-in that had a lot of different functions, but not all plug-ins are like that. I have invented my own way to categorize jQuery plug-ins (not rocket science or anything). In my head, I have four categories:
List data a different way than you’re used to.
Written by Jan Jorgensen
During the next few months, I will create a series of useful (at least I think so) jQuery plug-ins. If you are a keen user of jQuery, you will soon discover that, although jQuery has a lot of functions that will help your daily work, something might be missing. Or it could be that you simply want to do things in a different way, and you might now be a JavaScript expert who can write your own plug-in that will do the job and you want to lean on others who have already been down the path you want to go—at least that’s how I do it.
It’s not just software that gets upgraded and enhanced!
Greetings, readers! Welcome to the first edition of MC Press Magazine. As you can see, we’ve been busy making changes to ensure that your reading experience is convenient, productive, and pleasurable.
We revised the MC Press Online website in January 2017 (MCPO V2.0) Now, we’re bringing you this new format, an e-magazine that you can read on your desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone...or even print out if, like me, you still have a passion for paper.
Enjoy the read!
Magazines or books? Hard copy or digital? What and how do you prefer to read?
It’s summer! It’s the time for taking vacations, putting meat on the grill, and eating fresh peaches.
It’s also time to relax with your favorite reading material while you’re hanging out at the pool, lake, or beach. Back in the day, you’d grab your magazines and/or books and stuff them into your tote bag along with your towel, a hat, your beverage of choice, and some snacks. But these days, instead of hard copy, you’re more likely stuffing a laptop, tablet, or smartphone into your bag because that’s where your reading material resides.
Your digitial edition of MC Press Magazine is here so enjoy the read!
The late, great David Bowie came to mind as I thought about the topic for this column. Turn and face the strange.
The inadvertent theme of this month’s issue of MC Press Magazine has revealed itself to be changes.
For starters, you may have noticed that the MC Press Online website underwent a total remodel in July. Positive comments from readers indicate that they’re pleased with the new look and functionality. If you haven’t looked at it yet, I encourage you to do so. The email format of our newsletters has been updated, too. And, of course, we have here the third issue of MC Press Magazine. Everything about the look and feel of MC Press Online is nice and fresh and bright now.
Enjoy the read!
“Analysis” is arguably the tech buzzword of the day for businesses.
Summer’s over. Everyone who is still in school has gone back to focusing on their studies. If you have kids in college, they may be taking some analytics classes—maybe topics about data mining, predictive modeling, data visualization, or business statistics.
A quick search of available college classes turned up course titles such as Machine Learning and Optimization in Analytics, Social Network Analytics, Web Analytics, Data Management and Visualization in Analytics, and Computational Techniques for Large Scale Data Analysis.
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
If you’re racking your brain to think back to your own college days, you’re trying too hard. What I’m talking about should come up easily in recent memory. Think “Watson.”
All of those course titles represent things a Watson app or service can do for you. You don’t have to spend a whole semester learning how to do it yourself.
Enjoy the read.
Lots of people love this time of year…for one reason or another.
It’s autumn! Although I now live in the Southwest, I have nostalgic memories of the Northeast autumns of my youth. There is nothing (to me) as breathtakingly amazing as the beauty of trees’ leaves turning crimson, gold, and orange.
Many people enjoy the spectacle of autumn foliage, but many, many more get excited about this season for a completely different reason: It’s football season.
Let’s watch a fantasy football game.
The MC Presstige is suited up, but instead of being on the gridiron, this all-star team is playing between the front and back covers of MC Press Magazine.
The Presstige wins the toss. Game on!
Ghosts and witches—they’re kid stuff. But there really are other things to be afraid of.
By Victoria Mack
This being October, Steve Pitcher has a bit of a Halloween scare for you. But this goblin isn’t a fantasy. It’s real. IBM has announced end of support for the exceptionally popular POWER7 machines. Will IBM offer extended hardware maintenance? Who knows? It hasn’t happened yet. Read Steve’s article to see his perceptions of what some may consider a truly horrifying announcement.
If news of the Equifax breach left you quivering with fear, you’re not alone. Many, many people are wondering if they were affected. More importantly, many more are wondering how such a thing could have happened. News sources reported that a database hack was conducted on a “legacy” environment. Hmmm…legacy. You’ve heard that word used to describe the IBM i. Could it have been an IBM i that was hacked? Maybe. Carol Woodbury comments on that possibility and discusses the multiple layers of defense that are available to IBM i sys admins to ensure security breaches don’t happen to their company.
But there’s more good news than bad news in this issue of MC Press Magazine.
Mobile computing is rapidly maturing into a solid platform for delivering enterprise applications. Many IBM i shops today are realizing that integrating their IBM i with mobile applications is the fast path to improved business workflows, better customer relations, and more responsive business reporting. The ROI that mobile applications can produce for your business is substantial.
This ASNA whitepaper takes a look at mobile computing for the IBM i. It discusses the different ways mobile applications may be used within the enterprise and how ASNA products solve the challenges mobile presents. It also presents the case that you already have the mobile programming team your projects need: that team is your existing RPG development team!
1. Affordable Cloud Solutions
2. Efficiencies of MIMIX
3. Rising Cost of Downtime
This white paper is a collaborative effort between Connectria Hosting, a pioneer in the development of the IBM i Cloud, and Vision Solutions, the leader in High Availability and Disaster Recovery solutions including MIMIX®, the standard for complete, scalable HA/DR protection for the IBM i.
It will provide a review of the core causes and costs of both planned and unplanned downtime and will then provide a detailed discussion of current options for IBM i High Availability and Disaster Recovery in the Cloud.
Most importantly, as you read you will learn why true HA and DR protection are now within reach of even the smallest of businesses.
Download the technical whitepaper on MANAGING YOUR IBM i WIRELESSLY and (optionally) register to download an absolutely FREE software trail. This whitepaper provides an in-depth review of the native IBM i technology and ACO MONITOR's advanced two-way messaging features to remotely manage your IBM i while in or away from the office. Notify on-duty personnel of system events and remotely respond to complex problems (via your Smartphone) before they become critical-24/7. Problem solved!
Today’s businesses must be available 24/7 with fewer people having to manage more complex systems and processes.
IT departments receive a constant bombardment of information from a diverse variety of operating systems, business applications, and critical processes and support a complex array of servers and devices running across their entire network.
With tight resources and the need to keep costs in check, more and more is expected of IT operational staff to handle this information efficiently. They need to ensure a swift response with appropriate actions, that essential data is received at the right time, prove service levels are maintained, that contingency and high availability strategies are fully operational, and that vital business activities run smoothly and without disruption.
As hardware and software technologies evolve, so too does the complexity of the data center.IBM i often serves as the backbone for business-critical applications, including ERP packages, leaving other servers to run email, print serving, and the website—but users and other computing technologies still draw data from the transactional database on IBM i.
Robot systems management solutions have been helping customers manage IBM i operations for over 30 years. This white paper is intended primarily for IT management and attempts to explain, in plain English, the components of modern IBM i environments and how Robot can be deployed to maximize business objectives.
For the third annual IBM i Marketplace Survey, HelpSystems set out to gather data about how businesses use the IBM i platform. The past two surveys have sparked many thoughtful conversations about this technology and we’re thrilled to be part of such an engaged community.
Nearly 500 people from across the globe completed this year’s survey. We’re so happy to share the results with you, and hope you’ll find the information interesting and useful as you evaluate your own IT projects.
Sections: IBM i in the Data Center | IT Initiatives & Trends | Outlook for IBM i | Demographics | Resources
For all manufacturing industries, growth remains top of mind. Post-recession cautiousness has given way to confidence and more ambitious business goals. From automotive to fashion, more manufacturing leaders are ready to take bigger risks in the hopes of bigger payoffs, and optimism is the highest it’s been in years.
To help manufacturers choose the right software in a rapidly changing industry landscape, this guide will explore four key technologies that are essential to any successful manufacturing operation:
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
- Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
- Configure Price Quote (CPQ)
- Supply Chain Management (SCM)
PRACTICAL TOOLS TO IMPLEMENT DISASTER RECOVERY IN YOUR IBM i ENVIRONMENT
CLOUD VS. ON-PREMISE?
- COMPREHENSIVE CHECKLISTS
- RISK COST CALCULATIONS
- BUSINESS CASE FRAMEWORK
- DR SOLUTIONS OVERVIEW
- RFP BUILDER
Download your free copy of DR Strategy Guide for IBM i today.
The DR Strategy Guide for IBM i is brought to you by Maxava – innovative global leaders in High Availability and Disaster Recovery solutions for IBM i.
Creating mobile applications for IBM i on Power Systems doesn't have to be difficult!
Mobile applications can take your business to new levels of engagement, customer support and competitiveness. By making your ERP, Sales, Line of Business, and other applications mobile, you empower your workforce to get more done - from anywhere, at any time.
If your business runs on IBM i (formerly known as AS400 or iSeries) there's no need to worry. You can easily make your RPG applications available on any mobile device!
Read this free white paper, and learn how you can overcome the most common challenges to mobile for IBM i shops, including:
- How to go mobile with limited staff or budget
- How to make any RPG developer a mobile superstar
- Whether to choose hybrid or native development
- How to ease BYOD development stress
After surveying 400+ IBM i professionals, we discovered:
- The state of IBM i modernization in today's businesses and their goals for the future
- The effect legacy applications have on the businesses' internal and external processes
- The #1 concern upper managers have with the IBM i, and how to combat it
...and much much more!
Download your copy of The 2016 State of IBM i Modernization today.
Never heard of Application Administration? Don’t be surprised. Although it’s full of function, it’s one of little-known features of IBM i. Application Administration (or App Admin as it’s commonly called) has been around for a while but the additional features provided in the latest releases as well as recent Technology Releases makes this a feature worth exploring again. Carol Woodbury, President of SkyView Partners, has written a white paper describing how you can use Application Administration (a feature of i Navigator) to control access to various client functions as well as functions available on the IBM i and network features such as ODBC and FTP access.
Does a virus have your server down? Perhaps it’s the latest worm, Trojan horse, buffer overflow or denial of service attack that’s got you or one of your servers down. While one of these bugs may be affecting one or more of your servers in your enterprise, it is highly unlikely that the server affected is a Power server running IBM i. IBM i may be running your core business applications or it may be hosting your website or running Domino. Whatever its function within your enterprise IBM i has remained unaffected by virus and malware attacks. Why is that?
Viruses and other ailments spread by infecting a host that is vulnerable. Let’s take a look at how IBM i and the applications running on it can remain unscathed by the viruses and malware that are so prevalent today.
In this white paper, Carol Woodbury of SkyView Partners defines each “ailment” and then describe the defenses and protection mechanisms provided by IBM i to ward off the attack.
While one may think that PCI is a thing of the past and that it’s already been implemented, major breaches (most notably of the Target PoS systems) have brought it back into focus. Some retailers are just now understanding how PCI applies to them and other organizations have started to accept credit cards when they didn’t in the past. To refresh everyone’s memory, here’s an overview of what PCI means to the IBM i community and what organizations that use an IBM i to store, process or access cardholder data need to be aware of.
In this white paper we hope to explain why the decision to secure- or not secure – data on the IBM i needs to be a business decision ... not a technical decision.
Something is preventing management from understanding the need to secure the electronic data. So let’s explore why we think this happens....
Learn how companies are reducing shipping costs by Centralizing all of their Shipping Systems and Transportation Management Systems (TMS) on One Platform with One Vendor. See how companies deployed an enterprise-wide, multi-carrier shipping solution to manage both their Parcel and Freight shipments directly from their IBM i, and seamlessly integrated it to their back end IBM i ERP and WMS.
This Whitepaper examines eight reasons for centralizing standalone shipping solutions on the IBM i. In addition, you will see how a Modular TMS Solution integrated with ERP has driven significant efficiencies and cost reductions in companies shipping and transportation operation.
For every breach that makes headlines, dozens of other organizations have had data stolen or corrupted by hackers—or even their own users. Cyberthreats become more sophisticated every year, raising the importance of proper security controls.
The 2017 State of IBM i Security Study proves once more that many organizations running the IBM i operating system rely on system settings that leave data vulnerable. This is true across all industries for businesses large and small.
Weak passwords, lax system auditing, and overly privileged users leave your server vulnerable to internal and external threats. A data breach caused by a cybercriminal or a negligent insider can cause irreparable damage to an organization of any size.
The annual State of IBM i Security Study strives to help executives, IT managers, system administrators, and auditors understand the full extent of IBM i security exposures and how to correct them quickly and effectively.
If your business is thinking about modernizing your legacy IBM i (also known as AS/400 or iSeries) applications, you will want to read this white paper first!
Download this paper and learn how Node.js can ensure that you:
- Modernize on-time and budget - no more lengthy, costly, disruptive app rewrites!
- Retain your IBM i systems of record
- Find and hire new development talent
- Integrate new Node.js applications with your existing RPG, Java, .Net, and PHP apps
- Extend your IBM i capabilties to include Watson API, Cloud, and Internet of Things
Read Node.js for Enterprise IBM i Modernization Now!
After surveying 500+ IBM i professionals, we discovered:
...and much much more!
Download your copy of The 2017 State of IBM i Modernization today.
We're even giving one lucky person the opportunity to choose their own prize in our "All About Choice" contest for a $100 MC Press Bookstore gift card.
Visit the MC Webcast, MC White Paper, and MC Software Centers today and select as many of the FREE offerings you would like to receive.
While there, enter the contest and you may just win a $100 MC Press Bookstore gift card! Next Drawing: February 28, 2018.
Winner:
January '18 - Steve Goldman
February '18 - Kris Short
In this 45-minute recorded webinar, we dissect complex system monitoring by introducing best practices and smart techniques that will help you reduce and simplify your multi-platform monitoring workload.
In this 45-minute recorded webinar, virtualization specialist Glenn Robinson joins Ash Giddings to discuss the use of VIOS in today’s demanding Power Systems environments. VIOS can help you realize real business value by reducing IT expenditure and adding the flexibility to grow and shrink resources according to data center demands through virtualization across IBM Power Systems estates.
Make Application Monitoring Easy Across the IBM i, Windows, AIX, and Linux Platforms in Your Environment
IT departments are constantly bombarded by information from a wide variety of operating systems, business applications, and critical processes. At the same time, the department must support a complex array of servers and devices running across their entire network.
With limited resources and the need to keep costs in check, more and more is expected of operational staff to handle this information efficiently.
In this 45-minute recorded webinar, we’ll dissect complex systems monitoring by introducing best practices and smart techniques that will help you:
- Ensure vital business applications run smoothly and without disruption
- Respond swiftly and with appropriate actions
- Confirm that essential data is received at the right time
- Prove service levels are maintained
- Keep contingency and high availability strategies fully operational
IBM i is great at managing varied workloads—the OS offers many built-in work management and system utilities to aid administration.
But greater customization is sometimes necessary in the line of duty.
Halcyon has built upon these utilities to deliver a number of advanced functions designed for you to take control of all of your day-to-day IBM i activities.
During this on-demand webinar, our experts will demonstrate some of Halcyon’s capabilities and describe real-life scenarios that highlight how you can:
- Reduce your alerting footprint by implementing leading-edge monitoring techniques
- Identify both organic growth and spikes in disk space utilization
- Automate time-consuming housekeeping tasks
- Take advantage of the powerful IBM i Services
- Automate literally anything
Set your sights on having the right monitoring solution, no matter what comes your way. Watch the recording today!
When doing an upgrade to IBM i, it’s more work to plan the upgrade than to make the upgrade itself. Once you have a plan, the actual upgrade is simple. Do you know what you need to upgrade to IBM i 7.2?
Pete Massiello has helped many IBM i users make the move. He joins Tom Huntington to share 50 years of combined experience with IBM i. They’ll get you on the right path to an upgrade by helping you answer key questions like these:
- What is the right size for the load source?
- How do I increase the licensed internal code?
- Which version of Java is compatible with the new release?
- Which console options are no longer available with 7.2?
- Do I have the correct set of disks for the upgrade?
- What do I need to do differently when upgrading from 5.4, 6.1, or 7.1?
This one-hour recorded webinar covers planning tips, hardware and software prerequisites, and post-installation requirements.
Compared to alternative products like Intel or Oracle, what makes POWER8 so great?
In this one-hour recorded webinar, IBM’s Power Systems Product Manager Mark Olson joins Tom Huntington to discuss the advantages of Power technology. You’ll get great information about:
- Product specs for the S814, S824, E870, and E880 servers
- What’s new and unique in these servers to the industry
- Why IBM i users on POWER5, POWER6, or POWER7 should move to POWER8
- What to expect next, including storage area network (SAN) and direct access storage (DAS)
Developers, system administrators, and infrastructure teams using Power Systems running IBM i exclusively or alongside AIX and/or Windows should be sure to tune in!
Worried that you might automate yourself out of a job if you help your business implement a workload automation and scheduling system? No way, Jose! This is one of the most common misconceptions about automation. Watch this on-demand webinar and see why automation tools really are a lifesaver.
Now in its second year, HelpSystems, in conjunction with industry publishers, surveyed over 800 IBM i users from around the world to produce the IBM i Marketplace Survey Results. The expanded 2016 survey builds on last year’s results to provide even greater insight into the IBM i marketplace.
In this 1-hour on-demand webinar, IBM i expert Pete Massiello gives you a step-by-step guide to creating virtual i partitions hosted on IBM i.
Take a fresh look your IBM i investment to identify the areas where automation provides you opportunities for cost control while improving scalability and resource utilization and boosting employee morale.
If you own or administrate any of the Robot products, you won’t want to miss this one. This recorded webinar offers an overview of the Robot product suite, a live demo of recent updates, and a preview of what’s on the horizon for the Robot system management solution.
My desktop application users spend a lot of time manually generating and printing letters using IBM i data.
Our team copies and pastes information between IBM i applications all the time. Launching a PC application from my IBM i screens is impossible today.
Sound familiar?
Too many businesses go through manual efforts to transfer documents and data across IBM i and desktop applications—especially ERPs. Whether you use JDE World, JDE EnterpriseOne, Infor, Epicor, Microsoft Dynamics, or any other ERP, chances are your employees are stuck transferring information manually. And all of that manual effort leads to hours upon hours of wasted time.
But it doesn’t need to anymore.
Let’s face it: IBM i experts and RPG programmers are retiring from the workforce. These folks have been managing all areas of your business—often manually and behind the scenes—for decades, everything from IT operations to data and documents to cybersecurity.
Are you prepared to handle their departure?
During this 30-minute recorded webinar, our panel of IBM i experts—Chuck Losinski, Robin Tatam, Richard Schoen, and Tom Huntington—will outline strategies that allow your company to cope with IBM i skills depletion by adopting these strategies that allow you to get the job done without deep expertise on the OS:
- Automate IBM i processes
- Use managed services to help fill the gaps
- Secure the system against data loss and viruses
IBM i skills depletion is a top concern for IBM i shops around the world. The strategies you discover in this webinar will help you ensure that your system of record—your IBM i—continues to deliver a powerful business advantage, even as staff retires.
Experts agree that one of the most overlooked areas of IBM i security is the Integrated File System. Available since V3R1, the IFS provides access for users carrying nothing more than a user profile and password, so it better be secure! If you believe nothing important is stored on your server's IFS, think again, because it's a conduit to many things, including the Operating System and all of your application libraries and files.
Watch this important session to learn about securing the IFS, including:
Why do we care about the IFS?
Permissions versus Authority
Root folder access
Auditing IFS activities
Read/Write versus *ALLOBJ
Anti-Virus Considerations
This 30-minute recording demystifies Linux on Power, AIX, and VIOS and teaches best practice techniques for maintaining and controlling critical processes and applications running on your Linux, AIX, and VIOS environments.
IBM is discontinuing support for AFP utilities, starting with IBM i 7.3.
What does this mean? You probably need to find a replacement. AFP utilities have long been used to create electronic forms on IBM i. However, creating a form involves too many manual steps and takes up far too much of your time. So now is the time to find a more efficient electronic forms solution.
How do you do it? Start here. Watch this on-demand webinar to learn:
Plus, you'll see a demonstration of how an electronic forms solution from HelpSystems can fully replace AFP and make your organization more efficient.
Why is 2017 the year you need document management? Because not having document management costs too much. Your business grows—and outgrows the filing cabinets. Documents fall into disarray. Employees spend too much time manually managing them. And the biggest cost of all: you can’t provide the fast, helpful service that your customers and vendors need.
Watch this webinar to learn how to improve service with document management. In just 30 minutes, we’ll cover:
Think only large organizations can afford and implement business intelligence (BI)? Think again.
Today, BI isn’t just for the big guys. Small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) can (and, indeed, do) deploy BI tools—and it doesn’t cost them a fortune. Here’s why: they choose a BI tool that’s the right size for their business. They gain the clear, actionable information they need to make sound business decisions. And, since the BI tool is scaled—in size and cost—to their needs, they achieve fast ROI.
Need help finding the right BI for your SMB? Start here.
You'll learn the must-haves for BI on IBM i at SMBs:
Plus, you’ll see a demonstration of how Sequel Data Access makes BI for SMBs easy. Quick installation, simple setup, and easy data access mean you can start pulling reports from your IBM i within an hour.
Ready to help your SMB move faster and get more done? Watch the webinar today!
Nearly 90 percent of healthcare organizations have experienced data breaches.
Protected Health Information (PHI) is extremely valuable on the black market, which means cybercriminals are motivated to gain access to data stored by healthcare providers, insurance companies, and their business associates.
To combat this threat, HIPAA enforcement is ramping up with more audits and more fines. Getting HIPAA compliant is more important than ever for organizations in the healthcare industry, but one critical security measure has been overlooked by many: encryption is your last line of defense.
In this on-demand webinar, Bob Luebbe, Chief Architect for Linoma Software, will show you how encryption:
- Protects sensitive data at rest and in motion
- Limits the exposure caused by a cyberattack
- Makes HIPAA compliance simpler
- Can be surprisingly easy to implement
Bob will also demonstrate Crypto Complete, an innovative encryption and key management solution for IBM i.
Security expert Carol Woodbury is joined by the newest member of the HelpSystems team: Debbie Saugen.
Debbie is recognized worldwide as an expert on IBM i backup and recovery, disaster recovery, and high availability. For decades, Debbie has helped IBM i shops build and implement effective business continuity plans.
In today’s business climate, business continuity is more important than ever. But 83 percent of organizations are not totally confident in their backup strategy.
During this webinar, Carol and Debbie discuss the importance of a good backup plan, how to ensure you’re backing up your security information, and your options for encrypted back-ups.
In this presentation, Alex Roytman (CEO, Profound Logic) and Liam Allan (2016 COMMON Student Innovation Award winner) will unveil a completely new and unique way to modernize your legacy applications.
Learn how Agile Modernization:
- Uses the power of Node.js in place of costly system re-writes and migrations
- Enables you to modernize legacy systems in an iterative, low-risk manner
- Makes it easier to hire developers for your modernization efforts
- Integrates with Profound UI (GUI modernization) for a seamless, end-to-end legacy modernization solution
Protecting your data from viruses or malicious code is not an unfamiliar concept, but understanding how these threats can affect your Power Systems server may not be as easy to grasp.
There are many myths about viruses and IBM i—including the belief that the system is immune. Many Power Systems managers still don’t see viruses as a risk because they see them as a Windows threat. While this was once true, today’s connected environments operate under different rules.
It’s time to take action and protect IBM i and the network that connects to it. This on-demand webinar will help you gain an understanding of the relationships between:
- Viruses and the integrated file system (IFS)
- Power Systems and Windows viruses
- PC-based anti-virus scanning vs native IBM i scanning
There are a number of ways you can minimize your exposure to viruses. Learn the facts to ensure you're fully-protected.
Get the results of the 2016 State of IBM i Security Study in this on-demand webinar!
PowerTech has audited thousands of IBM i servers over the past 13 years, gaining extensive, real-world insight into the deployment state of IBM i security controls.
The results of this wildly popular study, the State of IBM i Security, have revealed vulnerabilities that even auditors miss—providing invaluable insight in seven configuration categories:
- Network-initiated commands & data accessServer-level security controls
- Profile and password settings
- Administrative capabilities
- Public accessibility to corporate data
- System event auditing
- Anti-virus protection
Automate Process Flow Through the Data Center
Typical “computerized” business processes are a combination of multiple schedulers, operational scripts, CL programs, and manual file checking, all backed up with the trusty runbook.
Is there a better way to manage business processes?
It is a common misconception that a business process cannot be automated if it’s too complicated or requires that someone verify each step. We’re here to tell you there is a better way to manage your business—process automation is possible!
Take 30 minutes to learn the options for automating your business process flow and how they fit into your data center processing, including cases of:
- Complex or iterative schedules
- Event-driven dependencies
- Multi-platform dependencies
- Dynamically calculated parameters
- Exception notification
- SAP and Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne integration
How do I know business process automation is effective?
If you have any doubts that automating complex business processes will improve your level of service, you’ll also hear a success story from the senior systems administrator at Trident Seafoods who embraced automation using the Robot solution and is reeling in the benefits!
There’s a better way to run your queries. With an advanced query tool like Sequel, you can deliver IBM i data you need quickly and efficiently—without the hang-ups of a basic query tool.
In this session, we address common frustrations with the IBM i basic query tool, discuss major data access and distribution trends, and help you understand what to look for in a more advanced query tool.
Plus, you’ll learn how a tool like Sequel helps you:
- Get up and running queries quickly
- \Make decisions with real-time data
- Boost productivity with runtime prompts
- Increase flexibility for users to access data
Watch the on-demand webinar now and learn why it’s time to take your queries up a notch.
Is babysitting documents through workflows driving you crazy? Are you tired of manually re-keying data day after day? Or are you simply losing your mind in an endless sea of paper documents?
Don’t let your document management problem send your head spinning any longer. Watch the webinar to pick your path to better document management.
You’ll learn how to solve your:
- Workflow problem
- Data entry problem
- Paper problem
Plus, we’ll demonstrate how HelpSystems Document Management (RJS) products will help you along the way.
It’s simple. IBM i is the most reliable, securable, and powerful platform to house your critical business data.
IBM i was built for business and has added features and functionality over the years to keep up with modern business needs. You can trust it to run your business, access your data in real-time, and keep your data secure. Plus, IBM i can scale to your business and handle all of your critical data.
Can your other platforms do that?
We didn’t think so.
Watch this 30-minute webinar to learn why you should keep your data on IBM i, including:
- IBM i is reliable
- IBM i offers fast and secure real-time data access
- IBM i helps your business prepare for tomorrow
Plus, we demonstrate how Sequel Data Access helps you modernize IBM i data access and meet your business needs.
Overnight and weekend support can be a minefield for operations teams tasked with attempting to maintain system availability, especially when they must rely on laptop-based VPN access—where a delayed response can prove costly.
With over 2 billion smartphone users worldwide, it’s perfectly reasonable for you to use the BYOD movement to your advantage and start managing your IT infrastructure from the palm of your hand. Watch this on-demand webinar to learn how Halcyon has modernized this crucial layer of support by introducing mobile applications for IBM i monitoring.
You’ll hear how one company has used the Enterprise Console mobile app to provide a valuable audit trail and speed up response time. You’ll also learn:
- The benefits of mobile apps
- How to respond to critical messages within seconds
- How to get notifications your way on your device
- How to set up escalation, ensuring alerts are always handled in a timely fashion
If your team is responsible for managing IBM i applications and services after regular business hours, you won’t want to miss this one!
If your programmers know SQL, they’re skilled in using SQL/400 to get your organization’s data. But that’s all your programmers can do with SQL/400. They can’t dive deeper into the data, and they can’t deliver data in the format business users require.
It’s time to do more than just get the data for your organization. Join us to learn how you can utilize your existing SQL skills with Sequel to access, analyze, and deliver useful data to your business users. With Sequel, it’s easy to run SQL-based queries in whatever interface you prefer—without writing the queries yourself. You can dive deeper into the data with reports and graphical dashboards. And, you can deliver data securely the way users want it.
In just 30 minutes, you’ll learn how to:
- Build SQL queries—without writing the code
- Deliver useful data to users—with run-time prompts, reports, and dashboards
- Keep your data secure—no matter where your users access it
Ready to transform the way your organization accesses, analyzes, and delivers data? Watch the webinar now!
Your ERP system —whether it’s JDE World, Enterprise One, Infor, Epicor, Microsoft Dynamics, VAI, or anything else—is essential to maintaining your company’s key business information and processes. But you’re constantly generating and receiving paper and electronic documents, too, and it’s hard to keep everything straight. So, you wind up chasing documents and data around—and keeping your customers and vendors waiting.
It’s time to make life easier and make your customers happier. With an electronic document management system, you can integrate with your ERP to keep all of your key documents and data in one spot.
And when all of your documents are stored digitally, you can speed up your processes and get key documents (like purchase orders and invoices) approved faster.
Watch the webinar and learn how to:
- Integrate a document management system with your ERP
- Capture all of your key shop floor, order, and shipment documents in one central repository
- Improve customer, vendor, and employee response times
- Accomplish more work without adding additional staff
It’s time to deliver your shipments faster and keep your customers happy by streamlining your paperwork processes.
How long does dock door signing take your organization? Too long if you’re still using manual processes and paper.
From generating to collating to printing to routing to signing, manual processes and paper slow down your organization—and your delivery times. Electronic documents and digital signature capture can change all of that. And your organization will be able to create, route, approve (with digital signatures), and retrieve documents faster.
Learn how digital signature capture helps you:
- Eliminate steps in your approval processes
- Improve auditability
- Reduce customer service time to resolve questions
Plus, we’ll demonstrate how digitizing signatures and documents will reduce your organization’s costs over the long haul.
Calling all programmers, system admins, operators, and data center managers! If your boss or your business just tossed you into the IBM i environment, you may find yourself up the operations creek without a paddle.
Let the IBM i experts at HelpSystems be your guide. Both first-timers and old hands will benefit from a few new tricks on where to get started with these essential IBM i areas:
- Job management and subsystems
- Memory management and allocation
- Report management
- System message handling
- User profile creation and control
- Commands and menus
Watch this one-hour recorded webinar to see how easy it can be to excel at IBM i systems management.
Robot automation and monitoring software provides features to simplify the task of managing your IBM i and cross-platform processes. It provides automated reporting and collects audit data for:
- Job tracking for Robot and user submitted jobs
- Audit trail of changes made to jobs
- Administrator fields for documenting changes
- Event logs reporting file arrival
- Message history identifying the who, what, and why of a message
- System storage and performance threshold events
If you own or administrate any of the Robot products, you won’t want to miss this one. This recorded webinar will show how to access the Robot audit data through the graphical and 5250 interface and generate reports automatically for distribution.
Robot SAVE can make your life easier when it comes to recovering your IBM i data. Watch this 30-minute webinar and discover the features that you and your auditors will love, including:
- Automatically generated system recovery procedures
- Audit reports listing what was or was not saved
- Tape integrity for all IBM i systems in the data center
- Finding and restoring a single object, directory, or library
- Technical support dedicated to ensuring the accuracy of your configuration
Why AppDev Should Embrace Automation
Your application development team is an expensive resource that works hard to improve business processes, yet more and more IBM i shops are putting AppDev in charge of managing day-to-day system operations.
Instead of taking their attention away from the website, business analytics, mobile, security, SQL data access, and more, streamline operations with automation and build in notifications so your teams have visibility into processing when they need it, and can manage the rest by exception.
In just 30 minutes, our experts will show how AppDev teams can take advantage of Robot automated operations on IBM i and beyond so they can:
- Stop programming for multi-platform job and file event dependencies
- Stop struggling with incorrect parameter values
- Stop wondering where to fit a process into daily, weekly, or monthly cycles
- Stop the on-call headaches, the firefighting, and the lack of progress cycle
- Go ahead, give your AppDev team a productivity boost!
NGS’ Software Developer Kit (SDK) gives IBM i developers comprehensive query, dynamic mobile reporting, analytics and Web report design features at an affordable cost. Install and create meaningful outputs for managers in one day! Web page and portal integration, email, FTP are included.
The $895* SDK includes a one user license, online training, user manuals, one year of software maintenance; toll-free support and online incident reporting.
- Want to modernize beyond Query/400 and PC files transfers?
- Need a Web reporting solution without the learning curve and overhead of DB2 Web Query?
- Have many reporting needs, but a tight budget and small staff?
View the demo and request a FREE TRIAL of the SDK.
* Limited time offer.
Because IBM i Access is not supported on Windows 10 clients, now is the time to migrate to Access Client Solutions (ACS), the strategic client solution provided by IBM.
In this recorded webinar, IBM i security expert Carol Woodbury and her guest, Tim Rowe of IBM, discuss ACS and related security considerations. You'll find out what ACS is and what security considerations you should be aware of during the initial deployment and configuration of ACS.
Carol and Tim also discuss:
- Benefits to the security administrator of using ACS (over IBM i Access)
- Other security considerations when using ACS
- Recent enhancements to ACS unrelated to security
IBM has provided us with two powerful and very exciting security enhancements in the last two versions of IBM i.
Scott Forstie of IBM joins Carol Woodbury to demonstrate and describe the V7R2 feature called Row and Column Access Control (RCAC), which extends how you define which users have access to specific rows in a database file. RCAC also provides a way to mask data for all or selected users.
The recently released V7R3 adds Authority Collection. Authority Collection provides organizations and vendors with the ability to know exactly what authority is required to perform a task, eliminating the guesswork. Gone is the need to set *PUBLIC authority on database files to *ALL or to automatically grant service accounts *ALLOBJ special authority just because you’re unsure of what authority is required.
Watch Scott and Carol as they discuss these and other new security features delivered in V7R2 and V7R3.
Learn why event auditing is necessary and how to configure it
Experts’ fears surrounding the risks associated with poor configuration were recently confirmed by the 2016 State of IBM i Security Study. Published annually, the results reveal most Power Systems lack adequate security controls and auditing measures.
In this fast-paced webinar series, leading experts Robin Tatam and Carol Woodbury share insight into critical areas of IBM i security.
This second session of the series introduces event auditing, with Robin Tatam covering the basics and more:
- Why auditing is necessary
- Determine if IBM i auditing is currently active
- How to configure auditing with one simple command
- What audit events are recorded (and which are missed!)
- How high availability (HA) applications often make critical events disappear
- Event reporting and real-time alerting
Protect your system from unauthorized network access through readily available PC tools
Experts’ fears surrounding the risks associated with poor configuration were recently confirmed by the 2016 State of IBM i Security Study. Published annually, the results reveal most Power Systems lack adequate security controls and auditing measures.
In this fast-paced webinar series, leading experts Robin Tatam and Carol Woodbury share insight into critical areas of IBM i security.
This on-demand webinar will show you how well-known services like FTP and ODBC enable users to access sensitive data without oversight or restrictions. Robin Tatam will also explain what exit programs are and how you can use them to protect your organization.
“Security” is definitely on your IT staff’s to-do list, but how often does this item get checked off?
IT doesn’t have enough time for security—the 2016 IBM i Security Study proves it. The trouble is that data security isn’t a set-and-forget project. Data security on your IBM i requires on-going attention and expertise.
In this on-demand webinar, you’ll learn how to save time and work more effectively. We’re cutting to the core of IBM i security by outlining the simple strategy developed by our experts.
You’ll see a straightforward approach to understanding and addressing risk to your IBM i data. We’ll also show you how our world-class security services help people protect business-critical data when they don’t have the time, resources, or knowledge to tackle IBM i security on their own.
Set the tone for data protection with security-relevant system values
Experts’ fears surrounding the risks associated with poor configuration were recently confirmed by the 2016 State of IBM i Security Study. Published annually, the results reveal most Power Systems lack adequate security controls and auditing measures.
In this fast-paced webinar series, leading experts Robin Tatam and Carol Woodbury share insight into critical areas of IBM i security.
The series opens with an introduction to security-relevant system values.
System values are one of the fundamental elements of IBM i security. The security system values enable you to “set the tone” of security on your IBM i, enforce password composition rules, and enable auditing. Watch this on-demand webinar to see Carol Woodbury describe these system values and provide guidance on their best practice settings.
The IFS is one of the most commonly overlooked aspects of IBM i security
Experts’ fears surrounding the risks associated with poor configuration were recently confirmed by the 2016 State of IBM i Security Study. Published annually, the results reveal most Power Systems lack adequate security controls and auditing measures.
In this fast-paced webinar series, leading experts Robin Tatam and Carol Woodbury share insight into critical areas of IBM i security.
This recorded session has Robin Tatam introducing IFS security:
- Defining IFS
- How the IFS is configured
- Common IFS security mistakes
- What a virus can do to IBM i through the IFS
- Tracking user activity
Everyone knows that cyber security is important, but getting started on the road to data protection and compliance can be confusing and intimidating. Understanding common vulnerabilities helps you focus your attention and resources on the areas that need the most help.
We all want “best-practice” security, but what are top organizations doing to achieve and maintain it?
Watch this webinar to learn the details about how to develop the seven habits that are part of daily life for secure organizations. You’ll learn how to:
- Break the Ostrich Syndrome
- Develop a Security Policy
- Assess Current Standing
- Perform Security Event Logging and Review
- Use “Best of Breed” Technologies
- Monitor for Ongoing Compliance
- Plan for the Future
This on-demand webinar examines what each of these habits means to IBM i, and helps you make sure that you don’t become the next security statistic.
"From the world's largest corporations to small Internet stores, compliance with the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is vital for all merchants who accept credit cards, online or offline, because nothing is more important than keeping your customer’s payment card data secure.” — PCI Security Standards Council
Complying with the PCI standard is a normal part of doing business in today’s credit-centric world. But, PCI applies to multiple platforms.
The challenge becomes how to map the general PCI requirements to a specific platform, such as IBM i. And, more importantly, how can you maintain—and prove—compliance?
Watch this webinar to understand:
- How PCI requirements relate to IBM i systems
- IBM i-specific barriers to compliance
- How PowerTech security solutions help you fulfill PCI requirements, meet compliance guidelines, and satisfy auditors
You’ll leave with the knowledge and confidence you need to evaluate PCI compliance requirements and prepare your IBM i system for today’s regulatory challenges.
Your IBM i holds a massive amount of data. In most organizations, that data constitutes a mission-critical and high-value asset.
How do you adequately protect the data residing on your IBM i, given its value to your organization? IBM has provided us with many options for protecting our data, but it’s now always clear how to select and implement the best options for your circumstances.
This recorded webinar describes IBM i’s different data security options, along with implementation recommendations and tips for getting started. Carol Woodbury, one of the world’s top IBM i security experts, also provides considerations to help you determine how many layers of security are right for your organization.
The IBM i operating system is lauded as one of the most secure available. Unfortunately, the truth is that many configurations result in shocking server vulnerabilities.
If you have an interest in security or regulatory compliance, watch this webinar to learn about 5 important “secrets” that your administrator needs to be sharing with you. Remember, you can’t fix what you don’t know about!
IBM i is known for its security, but this OS could be more vulnerable than you think.
Although Power Servers often live inside the safety of the perimeter firewall, the risk of suffering a data leak or data corruption remains high.
Watch noted IBM i security expert Robin Tatam as he discusses common ways that this supposedly “secure” operating system may actually be vulnerable and who the culprits might be.
Watch this on-demand webinar and learn how to rapidly and easily deploy mobile apps to your organization – even when working with legacy RPG code! IBM Champion Scott Klement will demonstrate how to:
- Develop RPG applications without mobile development experience
- Deploy secure applications for any mobile device
- Build one application for all platforms, including Apple and Android
- Extend the life and reach of your IBM i (aka iSeries, AS400) platform
You’ll see examples from customers who have used our products and services to deliver the mobile applications of their dreams, faster and easier than they ever thought possible!
Watch this Webinar Now!
Modern, web-based applications can make your Enterprise more efficient, connected and engaged. This session will demonstrate how the Profound UI framework is the best and most native way to convert your existing RPG applications and develop new modern applications for your business. Additionally, you will learn how you can address modernization across your Enterprise, including databases and legacy source code, with Profound Logic.
We will demonstrate how Profound UI:
- Goes beyond simple screen-scraping to truly modernize your RPG applications
- Uses RPG Open Access and your own RPG code and development talent to modernize
- Supports rapid development with an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop Designer
- Integrates with our on-the-fly modernization, mobile development, and Enterprise Modernization solutions
Security expert Carol Woodbury gets asked to explain many different aspects of IBM i security. Some are questions about straightforward concepts, but other questions reach the more obscure features and functions of IBM i security.
In this recorded webinar, Carol has gathered these questions and will provide examples and explanations for the more quirky and confusing aspects of IBM i security, including:
- What are the *ADOPT and *GROUP values you occasionally see when running the DisplayObject Authority command?
- What is primary group authority?
- Watch this webinar on demand to get answers to these and other security questions. There will be something of interest to everyone!
One of the ways to simplify the administration and management of users’ capabilities and access rights is to implement role-based access (RBAC). This technique is often preferred by auditors because it provides a more simple way to review users’ configuration and access. In this session, security expert Carol Woodbury will explain RBAC, the 5 steps you can take to achieve RBAC, as well as how to use SkyView’s Policy Minder product to simplify the setup and daily management of RBAC configuration and policies.
In this Coffee with Carol session, Carol Woodbury draws on her experience consulting with SkyView Partners’ clients and helping them with their PCI DSS implementation and compliance requirements. Carol explains each of the 12 sections of the Payment Card Industry’s Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) and describes specifically how each relates to the IBM i community.
SkyView Partners has been performing security assessments for the IBM i community for over 12 years. Based on the findings of these assessments, Carol Woodbury will present the Top 10 vulnerabilities found in IBM i security configurations. She will talk about each issue, making sure to describe how the vulnerability poses risk to your data. In addition, her discussion will include the prevalence of these issues, how to assess the risk of these issues as they pertain to your environment and options for addressing the vulnerabilities.
Carol is pleased to be joined for this Coffee with Carol by friend and former colleague Jeff Uehling, current Chief Security Architect for IBM i. Jeff and Carol will be discussing a number of the recent Security Vulnerabilities which have had a huge, industry-wide impact on both hardware and software vendors - including IBM and the IBM i development groups. These security vulnerabilities include well-publicized ones such as Heartbleed, Bash/Shellshock and Poodle as well as numerous vulnerabilities that haven’t hit the media. These vulnerabilities exist in areas such as Java, OpenSSL and many networking areas of your systems.
IBM i has long been known as a secure platform on which you can run your business critical applications. However, securing the system requires careful attention to the system-wide security configuration options, managing the authority settings on your data objects which contain your business critical data (corporate assets), and - as importantly - staying current with your enterprise-wide maintenance and ensure the latest PTFs/Fixes are installed in order to close "real" or "potential" security holes.
High availability for IBM i has been a hot topic in 2017, jumping 20% from our 2016 survey to take the #2 seat on IT priority lists just behind cybersecurity. And no surprise with these two topics so closely tied to your most valuable asset: your irreplaceable business data.
With major airline outages last year and the recent ransomware attacks, you must be asking yourself: am I doing everything I can to protect my organization’s data?
Tune in as our panel of IBM i high availability experts—Tom Huntington, Matt Staddler, and Cole Ragland—deliver lively discussion around the top high availability issues of today, including:
There are no do-overs when it comes to your data. Once it’s gone, it’s gone...unless you have a data replication layer in place to protect it. Learn the value of these strategic solutions and how you can implement them in a hurry—watch now!
In this Webinar, we'll demonstrate how Profound.js 2.0 enables you to easily adopt Node.js in your business, and to take advantage of the many benefits of Node, including access to a much larger pool of developers for IBM i and access to countless reusable open source code packages on npm (Node Package Manager).
You will see how Profound.js 2.0 allows you to:
Download and watch today!
Roses are red, your UIs are green...It's time to make your apps proud to be seen!
Whether you have green screens or a drab GUI, your outdated apps can benefit from modern source code, modern GUIs, and modern tools.
Profound Logic's Alex Roytman and Liam Allan are here to show you how Free-format RPG and Node.js make it possible to deliver applications your whole business will love.
In this webinar, you'll learn how you can use both Profound UI and Profound.js to:
This webinar will include a live product demonstration and Q&A with the presenters.
Download and watch today!
Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Why support 5 different products, when you can do it all with MarkMagic?
- Drive over 450 different printer types.
- Create invoices, statements, checks.
- Set dynamic rules that transform output on the fly.
- Conditionally distribute via Email, fax, or PDF.
- Integrate with your current applications in minutes.
- Preview printing on screen.
- Native System i, Windows, AIX, Linux.
Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable.
Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution.
Key features include:
- Simplified backup procedures
- Easy data encryption
- Save media management
- Guided restoration
- Seamless product integration
Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits.
Try the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution FREE for 30 days.
Managing messages on your IBM i can be more than a full-time job if you have to do it manually. Messages need a response and resources must be monitored—often over multiple systems and across platforms. How can you be sure you won’t miss important system events?
Automate your message center with the Robot Message Management Solution.
Key features include:
- Automated message management
- Tailored notifications and automatic escalation
- System-wide control of your IBM i partitions
- Two-way system notifications from your mobile device
- Seamless product integration
Keep your critical applications and data available. Try the Robot Message Management Solution FREE for 30 days.
The thought of printing, distributing, and storing iSeries reports manually may reduce you to tears. Paper and labor costs associated with report generation can spiral out of control. Mountains of paper threaten to swamp your files. Robot automates report bursting, distribution, bundling, and archiving, and offers secure, selective online report viewing.
Manage your reports with the Robot Report Management Solution.
Key features include:
- Automated report distribution
- View online without delay
- Browser interface to make notes
- Custom retention capabilities
- Seamless product integration
Rerun another report? Never again. Try the Robot Report Management Solution FREE for 30 days.
For over 30 years, Robot has been a leader in systems management for IBM i. With batch job creation and scheduling at its core, the Robot Job Scheduling Solution reduces the opportunity for human error and helps you maintain service levels, automating even the biggest, most complex runbooks.
Manage your job schedule with the Robot Job Scheduling Solution. brKey features include:
- Automated batch, interactive, and cross-platform scheduling
- Event-driven dependency processing
- Centralized monitoring and reporting
- Audit log and ready-to-use reports
- Seamless product integration
Scale your software, not your staff. Try the Robot Job Scheduling Solution FREE for 30 days.
NGS' Qport Office enables Windows users to run IBM Query/400 queries to:
- Create and update Excel spreadsheets and Access databases
- Create Word documents
- Send to Windows screen and PC printers
No query conversion is required. Works with i5/OS V5R1 & above. Installs in minutes!
If you don’t have a budget to replace IBM Query/400, but want your users to have one click enhanced output of their queries.... Request the online license agreement and product download instructions today!
Offer good through December 31, 2016.
Unbridled and unmonitored users are the quickest way to fail an audit and put your system at risk.
PowerTech Authority Broker lets you pre-define which users are allowed to use elevated levels of authority. These users “swap” into privileged profiles only for a specific window of time.
During the swap, Authority Broker lets you monitor powerful users even when they enter non-traditional environments, like interactive SQL, DFU, and QSHELL.
All activity is logged and screens are captured. Get indexed PDFs via email, monitor in near real-time or playback screens on the system.
Capture every keystroke. Try Authority Broker free for 30 days.
PowerTech Compliance Monitor simplifies the task of audit reporting. It comes with a set of reports for SOX, PCI, and even MICS gaming standards.
IBM i's audit journal is often so large and cryptic, that most IT staff struggle to review the logged activity.
Compliance Monitor analyzes your audit data across multiple systems and displays the exceptions to policy with remediation tips—all from your web browser! You can generate reports as PDF or Excel files.
Need custom reporting? Compliance Monitor’s flexible filters allow you to generate reports on any audit data you need—from system configuration to user activity.
Protect your company by monitoring network traffic to your IBM i servers with the industry-leading exit program, PowerTech Network Security.
Without visibility into IBM i's exit points, your users could be viewing, changing, or even deleting sensitive data—and you wouldn’t know!
Network Security lets you monitor and control access to over 30 exit points, including:
- ODBC
- FTP
- DDM
- Remote command
- Fileserve (mapped drives to IFS)
It’s easy to set up custom access rules and get notified in real-time when security events occur.
Stop “back door” access today. Try Network Security free for 30 days.
