December 2005

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In this issue...

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From Pete's Desk:.

Economic Overview for the SMB Market in 2006

To our clients and friends,

The small-to-medium-business market is where the growth is coming from for the country. IBM has just provided us with their economic study for the outlook of IT for 2006.

Economic overview for 2006: The outlook for 2006 will be moderate stable growth. A steady capital investment environment is still supporting growth for '06.

Eastern region: Moderate expansion, except for the impact of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf states.

Central region: Stable with moderate growth continuing overall.

Western region: Most positive trends in growth, with a slight softening in the retail sector.

Growth industries: Retail, transportation, banking, manufacturing, distribution.

Growth in hardware investment: Servers, storage, retail POS, ATMs, document processors.

Growth in software investment: Web-related software, BEA, simulation and training tools, document generation.

Growth in services investment: Business resiliency and continuity (HA and DR), AMF, integrated technology services, consulting.

Not expected to grow: Insurance and government.

Overall: The outlook is upbeat for 2006. The November financial reports brought the Dow Jones Industrial average close to the 11,000 breaking point. November Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was revised upward to 4.3 percent annualized growth. News of 215,000 new jobs in November, rises in stock markets around the world and the rising GDP “provided evidence the economy had emerged relatively unscathed from the most damaging hurricane season in recent history,” according to a Financial Times front-page story on December 3. The heating oil scare on the East Coast is abating and gas prices are actually going down. Add to that the rosy predictions for the retail holiday season and you are looking at a pretty strong economy.

These economic reports and forecasts describe an economy that will support IT spending in 2006 directed at specific solutions to meet clear-cut needs. Heavy emphasis will focus on a services component to install and implement IT solutions to ensure realizing their full potential. Seventy-two percent of companies surveyed in the IBM study expect to see no change in their IT spending in 2006.

As we all begin to make our plans for 2006, information of this type can serve to provide some of the background data that describes our economic surroundings. When planning for the year that lies ahead, nothing beats a clear understanding of the world around us.

See you next year!

Pete Elliot
Director of Marketing
pelliot@keyinfo.com
818.737.2804
Bio

Interview with Ron Deardorff on Document Generation:.

Ron Deardorff is North American Technical Support Manager at Inventive Designers, the developers of Scriptura XBOS that supports easy generation of business output. Deardorff spoke to INsights in an in-depth interview covering important aspects of document generation and the Scriptura XBOS solution.

INsights: What is XSLT?
Deardorff: XSLT, which stands for eXtensible Stylesheet Language: Transformations, is a language which is primarily designed for transforming one XML document into another. However, XSLT is capable of transforming XML to many other text-based formats, so a more general definition might be appropriate: XSLT is a language for transforming the structure of an XML document. For more information, go here.

INsights: What is XPath?
Deardorff: XPath is the result of an effort to provide a common syntax and semantics for functionality shared between XSL Transformations and Xpointer. The primary purpose of XPath is to address parts of an XML document. In support of this primary purpose, it also provides basic facilities for manipulation of strings, numbers and Booleans. XPath uses a compact, non-XML syntax to facilitate use of XPath within URIs and XML attribute values. XPath operates on the abstract, logical structure of an XML document, rather than its surface syntax. XPath gets its name from its use of a path notation as in URLs for navigating through the hierarchical structure of an XML document. Detailed information can be found here.

To see the full article, click here.

Spotlight on Key Talent:.

Jason Lau, Advanced Systems Engineer

Jason Lau has been architecting IBM solutions since 2000. Key INsights recently talked with Lau about his expertise and areas of interest.

INsights: Where did you work prior to joining Key?
Lau: I arrived at Key straight from Long Beach State College.

INsights: What are your areas of expertise at Key?
Lau: I am working with the Microsoft and Wintel platforms, and IBM BladeCenters. In the software world, I am trained on Scriptura XBOS and I am part of the Microsoft Top Gun Team and a member of Key's Marathon support team. I am also a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) 2003, and I have completed advanced training in Vision Solution's ORION high availability products.

INsights: What unique experience do you bring to Key's clients?
Lau: My experience at Key includes operating system experience and optimization, selection and implementation of software solutions including Vision Solutions high availability products, Marathon's fault tolerance software solutions, Scriptura XBOS document generation tools, and IBM Director. I also provide setup and systems assurance for new IBM servers at our client locations and provide training for them.

INsights: What do you do for fun outside the company?
Lau: I hold a second degree black belt in Hapkido, which is a Korean style of karate martial arts. I train several times a week and teach classes in Hapkido. I plan on testing for my third degree black belt in early 2006.

Jason Lau can be reached at jlau@keyinfo.com.

Useful Links:.

Where Do Web Standards Come From?

INsights talked to Ken Akren at Inventive Designers on what he knows about Web standards based on his involvement with Scriptura XBOS, a product that is highly integrated into Worldwide Web standards. Ken referred us to the The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It's an international consortium where W3C member organizations, a full-time staff, and the computer-using public work together to develop Web standards. W3C's stated mission is:

To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing
protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web.

Compliance for the iSeries:.

Carol Woodbury's Lessons on Compliance: Lesson 3 - Implementing Compliance Requirements for Protecting Data

In the October issue of INsights we talked about some of the laws with which your organization may need to comply. In this issue we're going to discuss compliance requirements for protecting your data. If you think about it, data is the cause of all of the laws we discussed in the last lesson. If there was no data to steal or abuse or illegally modify, we wouldn't be having this discussion! So the first thing you need to determine is whether the private or confidential data you're retaining really needs to be retained.

This lesson can be accessed at the following link: Carol Woodbury's Compliance Series - Lesson 3. Lesson 3 introduces the concept of "least privileged" access to data and what are the "best practices" for securing data under control of the OS/400 operating system.

Our thanks to John Vanderwall, CEO & co-founder of SkyView Partners, for furnishing this material. Look for additional Lessons on Compliance for iSeries users in future issues of INsights.

Princeton Softech on Data Privacy:.

Optimize Your Application Portfolio

Enterprise CRM, ERP and other mission-critical applications drive businesses today. Princeton Softech says it's important to realize that redundant systems and obsolete applications can increase the cost and complexity of your IT infrastructure. Managing your application portfolio and consolidating or eliminating some of these applications would help, but then what happens to your data? How can you optimize your application portfolio while retaining access to historical data for future reference?

Enterprise Data Management with best-practice database archiving capabilities can help. An article from Princeton Softech explains the value of using database archiving to decommission applications and optimize your application portfolio. You can sunset an entire system or migrate an application to a more cost-effective platform, while keeping historical application data accessible.

For more information, click here to access the article Portfolio Optimization and Decommissioning Applications.

Key Offers:.

For more information about these offers from Key, please contact your Key representative or Allen Shahdadi at ashahdadi@keyinfo.com. Please note that all Key Offers expire at close of business, December 31, 2005.

TSM Health-Check Service
Analysis of your current Tivoli Storage Management environment to better take advantage of all TSM capabilities and support backup growth projections. Storage pool management and best practices in data management policies are also covered. The result is specific recommendations designed to optimize the manner in which TSM is being used.
Cost: Price based on requirements
Expires: December 31, 2005

Data Archiving Assessment
Analysis of the current IT environment to determine the business rules for data governance. The result is a specific data archiving strategy tailored to the client's own needs.
Cost: None
Expires: December 31, 2005

Blade Server Evaluation
Online planning session with qualified Key systems analyst assessing potential benefits and costs of using a blade server for consolidation of applications and servers.
Cost: None
Expires: December 31, 2005

Server Consolidation Assessment
Onsite analysis to identify and assess consolidation areas and prepare formal findings, hardware specs and migration strategy.
Cost: None
Expires: December 31, 2005

Risk Assessor
Security assessment and remediation software with support services from Key.
Cost: 10% discount on software (priced by CPU); discounted services package.
Expires: December 31, 2005

Risk Assessor Demo
An iSeries security diagnostic tool, designed by Carol Woodbury, that analyzes security information from more than 80 "risk points" across OS/400, so you can see how your iSeries stacks up versus security best practices.
Cost: To register for a Free Product Demo, click here and type KEY in the Comments Box.
Expires: December 31, 2005

Reader Feedback:.

We value your ideas and comments. Please send your thoughts to Pete Elliot at pelliot@keyinfo.com or call him at 1.818.737.2804.

Publisher:.

Key Information Systems, Inc., a Premier Business Partner with IBM for five years, is headquartered in Woodland Hills, CA. Founded in 1995, the company provides system integration services, corporate infrastructure architecture for business continuity, storage, and e-business solutions. The company is a leading provider of IBM eServer solutions for the i5/iSeries, p5/pSeries, xSeries and OpenPower servers, and supports the i5OS, OS400, AIX, Unix, NT, and Linux operating system platforms. IBM storage products supported include IBM TotalStorage DS8100 SAN, DR 550, NAS, FAStT, BladeCenter, LTO tape solutions, Tivoli, plus TSRM for storage virtualization and management. High Availability and Fault Tolerant solutions are backed up with a complete range of professional services including education, critical assessments, installation, maintenance, and financing. All these computer resources are available at Key's Business Partner Innovation Center at 22120 Clarendon Street, Suite 100, Woodland Hills, CA 91367, USA. For more information, visit the company online, or call 1.877.442.3249, or email info@keyinfo.com.

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