July / August 2004

INsights is sent to you by Key Information Systems as a free news service providing facts and news critical to Information Technology.

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In this issue...
  • Webinar Announcement: Your Key to PeopleSoft
  • Webinar Report: Toward the On Demand World
  • Showtime: Key at LinuxWorld with ExchangeLiberatorTM
  • Offer Extensions: Offers for TSM Active Site Guide extended
  • Tivoli Announcements: IBM Refresh
  • Technical Blueprints: Free evaluation of system availability
  • Field Report: Email upgrade from NT 4.0 to Linux
  • PERPLEXITIES: It’s a Zoo in There
  • Electronic Media News: 5-Minute Briefing and Four Hundred Stuff
  • Key Factoid: Growth in compliant storage
  • Key Links Compliance and disaster preparedness
  • Offer Extensions

    • Webinar Announcement: Your Key to PeopleSoft:.

    Architecting for PeopleSoft -- September 28th

    Join a PeopleSoft specialist from IBM, an ERP analyst and Key’s president, Lief Morin, to learn how enterprise-quality benefits of PeopleSoft ERP applications can best be realized. Attendees learn how a rock-solid operating environment that’s part of an On Demand infrastructure allows for rapid growth and adjustments in server and storage capacity as application needs change. Using a Rapid-Start Methodology developed by Key and Pre-Integrated Application Modules, PeopleSoft applications can be architected to better fit user needs.

    Topics to be covered in this Key webinar include:
  • The enterprise-quality of PeopleSoft applications
  • How to achieve a rock-solid operating environment for ERP
  • Key’s Rapid-Start Methodology
  • The value of Pre-Integrated Application Modules
  • How On Demand infrastructure supports rapid growth and changes on the fly
    • WHEN: Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004
    TIME: 11 to noon, Pacific Time
    TO REGISTER: http://keyisit.raindance.com/iccdocs/seminarDesc.shtml?id=43071&mode=cal&tz=PST

    Webinar Report :.

    Toward the On Demand World with IBM’s Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger

    How On Demand and availability fit together.

    Key’s July 15 Webinar explored IBM’s view of the future and showed ways to prepare for it. Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, VP of Strategy for IBM and their chief platform futurist, weighed in on how IBM sees the coming world of On Demand and how that will affect IT today. Paul Adams, President and CEO at SteelEye Technology, discussed how availability strategies support On Demand. Finally, Lief Morin, President of Key, tied the whole new world of On Demand computing to what is happening in IT shops today.

    To view a recording of this and all past KEY webinars, go to: http://www.keyinfo.com/resources/web_arch.htm.

    A summary follows.

    click here to read more

    Showtime :.

    Key at LinuxWorld in San Francisco, Aug. 2-5

    Key exhibited at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco. The ExchangeLiberator software tool for migrating Microsoft NT and Windows to Linux was demonstrated. For conference information, see:
    http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/live/12/

    Find out more about ExchangeLiberator at:
    http://www.keyinfo.com/exchangeliberator.pdf

    Offer Extensions :.

     Active Site Guide Offer Extended to August 30:.

    Key has extended its offer for a trial of the TSM Reports.com tool, Active Site Guide through August 30. To obtain your free copy of Active Site Guide, contact Pete Elliot at pelliot@keyinfo.com.

    Active Site Guide lets you generate a complete site guide in Word for any TSM server in minutes. Coverage includes:
  • TSM Server Settings & Options
  • Licenses
  • Policy Domains & Sets
  • Management Classes
  • Backup & Archive Copy Groups
  • Database Settings and Volumes
  • Log Settings and Volumes
  • Device Classes
  • Storage Pools
  • Disk Pool Volumes
  • Disaster Recovery Module Settings
  • Client Schedules and Nodes
    • Active Site Guide captures the TSM configuration in a standard MS Word template that can be easily customized. Offer is good for Active Site Guide for one TSM server.

    Downloading/use and submittal of output from Active Site Guide by August 30 locks in the Special Price for TSM Reports described below. In addition, it qualifies the user for a free performance analysis of one TSM server.

    TSM Reports Special Price Extended to August 30

    Current special pricing for TSM Reports from Key provides 1-time use of TSM Reports discounted to $2,000. A 1-year use contract is discounted to $14,000. This Key special pricing has been extended to August 30.

    See all of Key’s offers in the Key Offers section below.

    Tivoli News :.

    IBM Refreshes Tivoli

    IBM has updated Tivoli Provisioning Manager and Tivoli Intelligent ThinkDynamic Orchestrator. Tivoli Intelligent ThinkDynamic Orchestrator V2.1, which includes Provisioning Manager, features improved integration with other Tivoli products, SAN support for automated storage provisioning, J2EE support, and additional language support.

    U.S. Announcement Letter:
    http://www.ibm.com/isource/cgi-bin/goto?it=usa_annred&on=204-124

    Source: NEWSWire Daily.

    KEY Technical Blueprints :.

    KEY Offers Free Availability Summary Report

     During the July 15th Webinar on availability for the On Demand world, Key announced a service to provide the results of an availability analysis free to organizations with Windows, NT, Unix, Linux or OS/400 operating system environments. Following an analysis by one of Key’s availability specialists, IT management will be provided a free Availability Evaluation Report covering:
  • Current systems topography
  • Likely points of failure
  • Potential steps to increase availability
    • This no-cost offer expires on August 30, 2004.

    The evaluation report is part of Key’s Technical Blueprint Service that covers six areas:
  • Availability Evaluation Report
  • High Availability for the iSeries
  • Tivoli Storage Manager optimization
  • Windows fault tolerance
  • Migration from MS Windows or NT to Linux
  • Use of a SAN filer
    • Key’s Technical Blueprint Service involves Key specialists working with organizations during a data collection phase, followed by analysis and reporting phases. The results can be used as a reference for comparing alternative courses of action.

    For more information on this new service, contact Pete Elliot at pelliot@keyinfo.com.

    Field Report :.

    Email Upgrade from NT 4.0 to Linux

    Key staffers recently paid a visit to a Key client in Chatsworth, CA, to find out how their use of Key’s ExchangeLiberator™ for email upgrades was working out. ExchangeLiberator is a set of software and services, using specialists at Novacoast, to migrate Microsoft users to Linux.

    Here is what Key learned two weeks following conversion of the client’s MS Exchange 5.5 email processing on NT 4.0 to OpenExchange using Novell SuSE Linux:
  • Linux opened the door to greater options and more flexibility for IT.
  • Greater choices are translating into faster reaction time and cost savings.
  • Upgrading their email was a $15K job using Linux vs. $60K for Windows 2000.
  • Novell OpenExchange allows employees to access their email from anywhere.
  • VPN for remote email is no longer needed and rarely worked from hotel rooms.
  • Employees can now work at home or from a hotel at Internet speeds.
    • Following weeks of preparation and fact finding, the actual conversion of companywide emails required the effort of three of the client’s 5-person IT staff for a total of two days…70% was completed after the first day. The big gain: flexibility and more options.

    We will return to this manufacturer near Key’s HQ and report back again after they have had a month or two of additional experience running OpenExchange.

    PERPLEXITIES :.

    This is the second of a new series of exploratory articles by Ralph Morin at KEY.

    It’s a Zoo in There

    It’s the micro-micro world of quarks and muons and positrons and up and down and strange that ultimately determine the fate of individuals and, consequently, of nations. It’s those little guys and their ‘feelings’ about each other that make all the difference in human affairs, and although some folks attribute their destinies to the stars, it is, in fact, the infinitesimally small particles that make up the stars and all of the rest of the matter in the universe, that change this universe and all that is in it. Physicists like to speculate about the shelf life of a proton. Does a proton decay? If so, what happens then? Does everything (including us) simply vanish? Does it hurt? Well, anyway, not to worry. Protons, according to the scientists, last a really, really long time.

    click here to read more

    Electronic Media News :.

    The 5-Minute Briefing for data center managers

     Prepared by Database Trends and Applications publishers and produced in cooperation with the IBM user group, SHARE, 5 Minute Briefing: Data Center provides a weekly report on new products, trends and insights focused on the needs of professionals managing complex IT infrastructures. It is edited by long-time industry editor and observer, Elliot King. For more information: http://www.dbta.com/datacenter/subscribe.html

    Four Hundred Stuff

     This weekly newsletter focuses on new hardware, software and services in the iSeries and AS/400 marketplace. Features include case studies, product spotlights, and vendor profiles. It is edited by an experienced reporter and midrange analyst, Alex Woodie. For more information: http://www.midrangeserver.com/fhg/fhgindex.html

    Key Factoid:.

    Growth in Storage for Compliant Records

     We have reported on compliance measures in the U.S., including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, governing the storage of much of the country’s electronic records. A study by the Enterprise Storage Group in May of 2003 showed that the worldwide capacity needed to store just mandated compliant records will increase from 376 Petabytes in 2003 to 1,644 Petabytes of storage in 2006. This represents a combined annual growth of 64% for storage capacity required to hold all data worldwide that must comply to regulations mandating how certain data must be stored.

    Key Links:.

    Compliance

     Playing by the New Rules: Your Risks and Responsibilities
    http://www.cio.com/newrules/ (April 2003)

    The Sarbox Conspiracy: CIO Magazine (July 2004)
    http://www.cio.com/archive/070104/sarbox.html

    Compliance news for the securities industry from Waters Magazine
    http://db.riskwaters.com/public/showPage.html?page=waters_features&av1=waters_story&av2=1602&av3=30

    Health care organization compliance issues
    http://storagemagazine.techtarget.com/strgFeature/1,291266,sid35_gci955922,00.html

    Disaster Preparedness

     Getting back to business after a disaster (American Red Cross)
    http://www.ibhs.org/docs/GBB.pdf

    Useful links when a terrorist threat is issued (American Red Cross)
    http://www.redcrossatlanta.org/homelandsecurity

    National Warnings Area (Interactive Weather Information Network -- IWIN)
    http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/iwin/nationalwarnings.html

    Offer Extensions:.

    For more information about these offers from Key, please contact your Key representative or contact Pete Elliot at pelliot@keyinfo.com.

    Active Site Guide Offer Extended to August 30:.

    Key has extended its offer for a trial of the TSM Reports.com tool, Active Site Guide through August 30. To download your free copy of Active Site Guide, go to http://www.kanatsiz.com/key/tsm.pdf

    KEY Availability Summary Report
  • Key experts assess your availability needs and solutions in place.
  • Findings are delivered in writing and presented by a Key specialist.
  • No cost to the recipient organization.
  • Expiration: August 30, 2004
    • 1-Time Use of Active Site Guide – a TSM Reports tool
  • See Offer Extensions section above for complete description of this tool.
  • 1-Time free use to be completed by August 30.
  • Submitting output from Active Site Guide to Key by August 30 locks in TSM Reports Special Price Offer (below).
  • Includes free performance analysis of one TSM server.
  • Expiration: August 30, 2004.
    • TSM Reports Special Price Offer Options
  • TSM Reports reporting and analysis tools help implement TSM more efficiently.
  • 1-time use of TSM Reports: $2,000 ($500 savings off $2,500 list)
  • 1-year use contract: $14,000 ($2,000 savings off $16,000 list)
  • Expiration: August 30, 2004
    • HA for 25K
  • High Availability software for OS/400 and Windows
  • Free installation and support for 12 months.
  • Prepaid for $25,000
  • Expiration: December 31, 2004
    • ONStor SAN File Storage Manager Configuration
  • ONStor SAN Filer with mirroring software, onsite installation
  • Bundled price: $173,000
  • Expiration: ongoing
    • Discounts on IBM Education
  • Buy your next IBM Education Pack from Key
  • Education planning assistance from Key included
  • Save from 5 to 20 percent
  • For more information, contact Paul Johansen at 800.929.9514 or pjohansen@keyinfo.com
  • Expiration: on-going

    • Reader Feedback:.

    We value your comments. Please send us your ideas and suggested topics to: pelliot@keyinfo.com.

    Key Information Systems, Inc., (www.keyinfo.com) a Premier Business Partner with IBM, is a systems integration company located at 22120 Clarendon St., Suite 110, Woodland Hills, CA 91367, USA. Founded in 1995, the company provides corporate infrastructure architecture for business continuity, storage, and e-business solutions. Key Information Systems is a leading provider of IBM server solutions for the iSeries, AIX (UNIX), NT, and Linux platforms and has distinguished itself by extending its high availability infrastructure solutions to the Internet economy. The company delivers a complete range of professional services including education, maintenance, and IBM Global Financing. For more information, please visit the company online or call 1-877-442-3249.

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