Tandemworld eNewsletter for July 2011

2. It has to be monitored, since the system and network environment is always changing.

3. It has to be actively managed, since the demand on the system is growing (hopefully) or at least ever-changing.

Providing a comprehensive audit of the processing environment, including Windows and Unix components.

1440x730 coverage (every minute, every day, with a 2-year historical perspective).

As many of us are aware, Modernization is an important IT industry direction. Modernizing systems is also very important for the business to move forward.

Interestingly, there is a range of costs, risks and certainty / uncertainty associated with the various Modernization solutions.

Fortunately solutions are available that deliver results quickly and economically - with no risk.

For more insights on Modernizing Information Services, please see the article in the upcoming July/August issue of The Connection at www.cail.com/TheConnectionArticle

comForte 21 to Partner with PCI Security Standards Council to Improve Payment Data Security Worldwide

- As Council’s newest Participating Organization comForte 21 to contribute to the development of PCI Security Standards -

Wiesbaden, Germany, July 6, 2011 - comForte 21 GmbH, a leading global provider of security solutions for HP NonStop systems, today that it has joined the PCI Security Standards Council as a new Participating Organization. comForte 21 will work with the Council to achieve and improve payment data security worldwide through the ongoing development of the PCI Security Standards, including the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), PIN Transaction Security (PTS) requirements and the Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS). Read more.

As a new participating organization comForte 21 will attend the PCI Community Meetings in Scottsdale and London - see below.

VNUG, Stockholm, Sept 5-7
NEW: PCI Community Meeting North America, Scottsdale, AZ, Sept 20-22
GTUG, Germany, Berlin, Sept 21-22
BITUG Security SIG, London, Oct 12
NEW: PCI Community Meeting Europe, London, Oct 17-19

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Gravic Adds HP Converged Infrastructure Ready Partner Insignia to Products

Gravic, Inc., the HP AllianceONE Partner of the Year for Converged Infrastructure (CI), adds the “HP Converged Infrastructure Ready Partner” insignia to its website and marketing materials. Gravic’s efforts demonstrate its expertise in delivering solutions that are CI compliant, making it easy for customers to deploy its Shadowbase solutions with confidence. The CI Ready testing and validation procedures leverage HP’s best practices and extensive experience in delivering secure, best-in-class applications and solutions. Click here for more information.

Two New Articles Available from Gravic Website

"Data Replication on Steroids" Article by John Hoffmann, Manager of NonStop Development, Shadowbase Product Group (originally published in Only on NonStop column in The Connection, July/August 2011 issue)

Concurrent replication has many efficiency advantages over serial replication. These advantages are described in this paper. The highly efficient technique of concurrent replication is commercially available only on NonStop systems because of the unique structure of and access to the TMF Audit Trail coupled with replication engine extensions that allow the replication engine to replay the target transaction mix concurrently with source transaction processing. It is the specialized nature of the NonStop Audit Trail that allows data replication to perform as if on steroids.

“Large International Tour Operator Uses HP NonStop to Optimize Look-to-Book Processing” Case Study by Paul J. Holenstein, Executive Vice President, Shadowbase Product Group (originally published in The Connection, July/August 2011 issue) This case study is an excellent example of HP’s move to a converged infrastructure. It demonstrates how one customer took advantage of facilities available to the HP community to integrate diverse systems into a common application while leveraging the inherent strengths of each system. By expanding its original NonStop system to a multinode, heterogeneous distributed system, the tour operator gained many advantages. The new system scales easily (and inexpensively), and provides continuous application availability across entire site failures.

Please Visit Gravic at these Upcoming 2011 Shows

· VNUG Conference, Stockholm, 5-7 September

· ACE Asia Pacific 2011, Singapore, 17-20 October

· CTUG Fall Conference, Toronto, 26 October

· ACE Africa 2011, Johannesburg, 15-16 November

· HP Discover 2011, Vienna, 29 November to 1 December

· BITUG BIG SIG, London, 9 December

Gravic, Inc. is a privately-held corporation located in Malvern, PA, about twenty miles west of Philadelphia, PA, USA. Gravic makes a number of computer software products for data collection, transformation, and distribution uses. Customers of its Shadowbase data replication products include banks, financial and brokerage firms, insurance companies, stock exchanges, electric utilities, healthcare, and telecommunications companies. For additional information about Gravic’s products and services, including free white papers on how Shadowbase data replication solutions can solve your company’s business continuity, data integration and synchronization, application modernization, and real-time business intelligence challenges, please visit: www.gravic.com/shadowbase.

Infrastructure Modernization: comForte brings New Life to Your NonStop Systems!

Looking to modernize your NonStop infrastructure – but wondering where to begin?

Go to our website at http://comforte.com/modernization and

Read the NonStop Application Modernization article
Review the slides of our recent webinar 'Survival of The Fittest - Modernize Your NonStop Applications Today!'
Watch the whole webinar in YouTube
Follow our blogs covering Modernization

Come and see us at these upcoming events in 2011

ACE Asia Pacific, Singapore, Oct 18-20

CTUG, Toronto, Oct 26

Discover, Vienna, Nov 29 - Dec 1

BITUG BIG SIG, London, Dec 8

Follow us on:

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NuWave Case Study Now Available Online

A recent customer story focused on HP NonStop modernization can now be downloaded a la carte, and without registration.

In this concise success story, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) chooses to modernize a key application using NuWave Technologies' SOAP/AM Server and SOAP/AM Web Service Client solutions.

These products are easier to install and use, come with better support, and have a lower TCO (total cost of ownership) compared to similar offerings.

They were also the FIRST of their kind for the NonStop server.

www.nuwave-tech.com

ETI-NET Announces its User Forum

ETI-NET created a User Forum earlier this year. We did this to have a place where our customers could interact with both ETI-NET staff and other ETI-NET customers. The objective of this forum is to be a place for sharing ideas and solutions.

For example, let’s say you resolved an operational problem using an ETINET solution. It may be in a creative way that even the smart team at ETI-NET not yet thought of.

The forum is the vehicle to allow other users to possibly find the same benefit.

Or if you want to discuss a current feature, suggest a new one, or even ask about the choices we’ve made in our feature set, use the forum.

ETI-NET R&D regularly post news and announcements about upcoming releases and our sales team will let you know of events that we will attend.

Customers, please register at http://www.etinetforum.com.

If someone else at your company would benefit from being member of this forum, please forward this link to them.

We look forward to your postings.

Musings on NonStop!

July, ‘11

The opinions expressed here are solely
those of the now self-employed author

It’s no surprise that crowds attract crowds. And it should come as no surprise that communities that prove popular grow even bigger – the ever changing city “demographics” across America are a testament to this naturally-occurring phenomenon! And so it was this past week that I reported on how the LinkedIn group, Real Time View, has seen membership climb through 700.

Established purely for the purposes of discussing all things NonStop related, it’s become the place to go and the topics of late including “Is NonStop alive and kicking …” as well as “How can we save NonStop?” to name just two of the more recent discussion groups attracting sizeable commentary! It’s quite a rarity for a day to pass without more than one comment being posted and I’m not always the subject of positive reviews.

The history of Real Time View is deeply rooted in the ITUG community of old. When I accepted the position of past-Chairman of ITUG, I was asked to write a column for the ITUG magazine, The Connection. After a couple of years of doing this, I was then asked whether I would like to try my hand at doing something similar in the social media world, and hence the creation of the blog, Real Time View! This transition from the physical, paper, medium to the electronic medium didn’t hide its heritage and it’s it’s a clue that the url for the blog remains www.itug-connection.blogspot.com

Through the four plus years I’ve been posting feature articles to this site, there’s been a number of comments posted with a couple of them in turn generating literally dozens of responses. Nothing prepared me, however, for the escalation in “liveliness” that has followed the creation the Real Time View group on LinkedIn, and I think it’s truly a positive reinforcement of the fact that many within the NonStop community simply aren’t prepared to let their voices go unheard. The ease with which comments can be posted, as compared with other forums, has unleashed a torrent of activity and I find this a welcomed development.

Last month I wrote of other groups that have been formed of late, all of which I have some association with. But the list of groups as part of LinkedIn continues to grow and I anticipate more to follow shortly.

Check out:

comForte Lounge – this is focused on comForte product and solutions but also includes commentary on modernization including HP’s CI-Ready initiative

realtime ir – among the most recent groups created on LinkedIn and focused on monitoring with a cross-platform perspective.

SNAX – a tongue-in-cheek label covering all legacy protocols on NonStop as supported by SNAX, ICE and more recently, uLinga. This is also a place where CLIMs will be covered.

Pyalla Technologies – this is about the perspective I have on the industry and where topics such as HP vs Oracle are addressed.

Real Time View – the original and biggest of these groups and already covered earlier in this musing.

If you have as yet not paged through the list of groups associated with NonStop and are looking for a place to start, joining any of all of the above will certainly ensure you are not missing out on anything! But I’m not alone and there is a growing number of groups focused on NonStop content – at last count, I’m participating in some 40+ groups. And I’m sure there’s some I have missed as well!

On this note, I will wrap up this musing but before I do, a quick update on my business front: last month I revisited my past, well some of it at least, and I wrote of my renewed interest in subject areas I was once very fervent about. Almost evangelical, in the way I conveyed their importance to anyone who cared to listen to me; my passion rarely went unnoticed.

I also talked about how it was my clients who were steering me this direction and I am excited to report that I have added another vendor to my client base – Attunity. And I am really pleased to be working with really great people at Attunity and, once again, this partnership takes me into areas I really like to cover.

Look for more about what I am doing in a later musing.

Until next month…

Following my blogs? My web publications? My discussion Groups?

Check out:

Real Time View at http://www.itug-connection.blogspot.com/

…. And check out the Group on LinkedIn, Real Time View

comForte Lounge at http://comfortelounge.blogspot.com/

…. And check out the Group on LinkedIn, comForte Lounge

Realtime.ir at http://realtime.ir.com/

…. And check out the Group on LinkedIn, realtime.ir

Buckle-Up at http://www.buckle-up-travel.blogspot.com/

…. And check out the SubGroup on LinkedIn, Pyalla Track Days

PeruseWeb 2011: A new product version is available from River Rock Software

PeruseWeb 2011 allows spoolfiles to be viewed using Internet Explorer. A user's spoolfiles are displayed in a 'Job List' webpage. 'Clicking' a specific Job Number will download the spoolfile to a new IE window displaying the entire spoolfile in a 132 character wide scrollable window. The new features added in this release are:

· The columns in the Job List webpage can now be sorted.

· There are now 5 different web interface styles to choose from.

· A spoolfile's Open and Closed dates in the Job List webpage can be customized according to local standards. Time can be displayed in 12 or 24 hour format and there are 18 different date formats available.

· Automatically logoff a dormant session based on a pre-configured timeframe.

PeruseWeb 2011 is on sale through August 31, 2011 for $4000 US Dollars. The web interface can be 'branded' to match a customer's website or to a customer's specification free of charge.

The only products required are TCP/IP and Internet Explorer. Guardian releases D48.03 and later are supported including all hardware platforms. Installation typically requires 15 minutes.

Download a free demo: http://www.RiverRockSoftware.com/PeruseWeb.htm and click the 'Download Demo' link. The demo expires August 31, 2011.

For more information contact: arthur@RiverRockSoftware.com, +1 916 797-6746

Hard on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside…

The title refers to a great quote from a recent Tom Kemp article on Forbes.com http://blogs.forbes.com/tomkemp/2011/07/05/as-hacks-proliferate-new-security-technology-emerges-to-monitor-privileged-it-users/, explaining that the old way of securing a computer system (let only trusted people logon, then let them do whatever they want), no longer suffices. Of course, on NonStop we’ve always had more control over our users than that, but it’s worth considering whether further improvements to security are in order.

These days, with SOX, HIPAA and PCI regulations insisting that we more closely monitor all actions performed by all users, the “hard on the outside, chewy on the inside” approach is not enough. Guardian and Safeguard allow some level of control over file access, and utility program execution, but do not give the fine-grained access control, nor the necessary level of auditing, that is required.

The XYGATE Access PRO suite, and the Access Control module it includes, greatly extend the basic access control capabilities providing by the native NonStop security subsystem. NonStop security administrators can control the specific commands and subcommands that each user can issue from any NonStop utility program. Users can also be granted access to specific commands that would normally be outside their capabilities, meaning that shared access to Super and Manager IDs is no longer required for those users to be able to do their job. All commands are audited, and full keystroke logging is also supported.

Once you have implemented more granular access control, the next step in securing your system is to put a good level of auditing in place. The PCI Data Security Standard (DSS) requirement 10, for example, states “Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data”. What this means will be specific to your application and environment, but again, it will require more than the standard Guardian/Safeguard levels of security to achieve compliance.

XYGATE Access PRO supports all this functionality, and has done so since 1990, back when PCI was just a glimmer in someone’s eye. Whilst the NonStop has always had an enviable security record, my new colleagues at XYPRO have constantly been thinking of ways to ensure that our customers reduce their risk of finding themselves on the front page due to a security incident. For more information on XYGATE Access PRO, see https://www.xypro.com/index.php?id=24 or contact me at andrew_p@xypro.com.

Andrew Price

Director, Product Management

XYPRO Technology Corporation

*Be sure to complete our updated survey! You’ll be automatically entered for a chance to win a TouchPad.
Please note that you’re still eligible to win even if you completed the survey last quarter. Simply click here : http://www.xypro.com/survey

NSWi

Are you a European NonStop User?

Do you require a Full Time / Part Time Resource boost to Cover New Projects, Maternity / Paternity leave etc.?

Do you have NonStop Customers based in EMEA that require Local Support of Hardware and Software?

Nonstop World International (NSWi) can help.

We are currently providing Local Support to Vendors outside of the EMEA region for their NonStop Customers based in EMEA.

Contact us to see how we can assist you with highly skilled NonStop professionals, whether Long Term or Part Time on a 24*7 basis.

Large European Payment Processor Selects XYPRO to Meet its HP NonStop Server Security and PCI-DSS Requirements

Simi Valley, California, USA – 2011 - XYPRO today announced that Equens SE has successfully implemented its XYGATE suite of security and compliance solutions. Equens will leverage XYGATE to improve its HP NonStop security and achieve PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance.

Equens is one of the largest pan-European payment processors, leading the market for future-proof payments and card processing solutions. With clients and partnerships in multiple European countries and an annual processing volume of 9.7 billion payments and 3.9 billion POS and ATM transactions, Equens SE has a European market share of more than 12.5%.

“When our security team started its PCI-DSS compliance project, we faced the same dilemma as many other large firms,” said, Stefan Dusée, Equens’ Security and Control Manager. “We needed a solution that would allow us to meet PCI-DSS as cost-effectively as possible, but also went well above the minimum standards set out by PCI-DSS, thus potentially future-proofing our security standards.”

Equens created a detailed list of requirements, prioritised from “essential” to “desired” and developed a comprehensive RFP. Equens determined that XYPRO’s XYGATE security, compliance and auditing suite offered the best solution to meet their existing and future security and audit needs.

The XYGATE security suite includes role-based access control (RBAC), keystroke audit, user management, real-time alerts, user authentication and the most comprehensive audit and compliance software available for the NonStop server. Equens is using XYGATE security software not only to make its systems as secure as possible, but also for essential, time/labor-saving functionality.

“We’re confident we made the right choice in selecting XYPRO for our HP NonStop security and compliance enhancements,” said Dusée. “Configuring such an extensive range of products presented quite a challenge, but XYPRO has provided excellent support and training services and the new tools are proving to be worthy investments.”

Barry Forbes, XYPRO’s VP of Sales and Marketing said “We are thrilled to announce Equens’ selection of XYGATE for its PCI-DSS security requirements. As a valued customer, we know that Equens will continue to enjoy the same security benefits and efficiencies all XYGATE customers are accustomed to.”

Barry Forbes

VP of Sales & Marketing

XYPRO Technology Corporation

*Be sure to complete our updated survey! You’ll be automatically entered for a chance to win a TouchPad.

Please note that you’re still eligible to win even if you completed the survey last quarter. Simply click here : http://www.xypro.com/survey

Availability Digest Highlights Royal Bank of Canada’s New Active/Active Network

The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) recently modernized its data-center architecture by reengineering its active/backup system to be active/active. Planned outages for system upgrades have been reduced from hours to minutes; unplanned outage times have been reduced more than 95%; and ATM/POS services can be restored so quickly that outages go unnoticed by customers. The Availability Digest discusses this major step taken by RBC to provide improved banking services to its customers.

Also in the July Digest:

● Cloud Foundry, VMware’s new entry into cloud computing, foundered just two weeks after its launch in April. Serving as a platform for developers to build their own cloud environments, Cloud Foundry was in beta release when it suffered a sequence of major problems entailing storage subsystem faults and the dreaded human ”fat finger.”

● Most highly available systems in use today are complex assemblies of redundant components. Reliability Diagrams are important tools to calculate the availabilities of such complex systems. This article is part of the Digest’s Geek Corner, so be prepared for some math.

● Choosing a Business Continuity Solution: Part 1 – Availability Fundamentals, provides management with an understanding of data-replication technologies, the kind that enable IT services to survive any fault, whether it is a server failure, a network fault, or a data-center disaster. Part 1 reviews the fundamental concepts that define availability.

The Availability Digest offers one day and multi-day seminars on High Availability: Concepts and Practices. Seminars are given both onsite and online and are tailored to an organization’s specific needs. http://www.availabilitydigest.com/seminars.htm.

Published monthly, the Digest is free and lives at www.availabilitydigest.com. Please visit our Continuous Availability Forum on LinkedIn. We’re at 290 members and counting. A recent thread,”Availability is Fine – What Else,” attracted numerous comments on what other attributes of fault-tolerant systems are as important for IT considerations as is outstanding availability.

XYPRO in Your Neck of the Woods

We’re traveling the globe, spreading the word about all the exciting product plans and features we have in store.

Come visit XYPRO at:

August 16 - OZTUG Annual Conference

Novotel Sydney

Sydney, NSW, Australia

October 12 - BITUG
Security SIG
London, England

www.bitug.com

September 5-7 - VNUG

Stockholm, Sweden
www.vnug.biz

October 17-19 - PCI Security Standards

European Community Meeting
London, England

www.pcisecuritystandards.org

September 20-22 - PCI Security Standards

North American Community Meeting
Scottsdale, Arizona USA

www.pcisecuritystandards.org

October 17-20 - ACE Asia Pacific

Singapore, Singapore

http://www.aciworldwide.com/News-and-events/Events/Asia-Pacific-PRM-user-group-2011.aspx

Dec 7, 8 - BITUG

7th Dec Education Day

8th Dec BIG SIG (including Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity)

London, England

www.bitug.com

*Be sure to complete our updated survey! You’ll be automatically entered for a chance to win a TouchPad.

Please note that you’re still eligible to win even if you completed the survey last quarter. Simply click here : http://www.xypro.com/survey

Brightstrand Health Check Service

Maximise your hp NonStop(tm) Server environment.

The BrightStrand International hp NonStop Server Health Check Service has been created in order to provide users of hp NonStop(tm) Servers with a situation report as to the status of their hp NonStop systems and service environments.

The service has been designed by BrightStrand, to assure customers that they are getting the optimum from their current hp NonStop(tm) Server environments. The Health Check will provide a guide to assist customers in making improvements to various service areas. It can also be used as a tool to aid the decision making process in such key areas as hardware purchasing, system migration and Service Level Agreement (SLA) planning.

The service will take into account a number of factors depending on the pre-defined scope of the service. These may include - procedures, strategies, system performance, configurations and security. The service will involve the monitoring of system metrics, an assessment of general procedures, review of software revision levels and a general check of the installation.

Service Objective

The objective of the Health Check is to provide high quality reviews of service areas that have been identified, by the customer, as being of concern or of interest. The main goals of the service will be:

· To advise on compliance with standards.

· To report on efficiency and performance.

· To Identify possible problem areas and recommend solutions.

· To advise on current or future strategy.

This will be achieved by engaging a fully qualified and experienced BrightStrand consultant that will work closely with the customer to agree the scope of the engagement and to identify areas of special interest or concern, use BrightStrand tools and solutions to gather the necessary information and documentation, analyse the information and deliver the agreed reports. Consultancy will be provided in the areas of Performance, Capacity Planning, Disaster Recovery, Operations, Database Management, System Security, System Management and Hardware Maintenance.

For further details please contact Dave Stewart today on +44 (0)7831 775115 or email him on dstewart@brightstrand.com.

User Groups

Information on User Group events can be found at http://www.connect-community.org

BITUG

12th October Security SIG

29th Nov – 1st Dec HP Discovery, Vienna

7th Dec Education Day

8th Dec BIG SIG (including Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity)

www.bitug.com

Discover, Las Vegas, June 6-10

VNUG, Stockholm, Sept 5-7, 2011

CTUG, Toronto, October

GTUG, Germany, Nov

Discover, Vienna, Nov 29 - 1 Dec

Where to Follow Tandemworld

Tandemworld have created a Group on LinkedIN through which you can view the latest Tandemworld eNewsletter.

We cuurently have a number of highly experienced NonStop Specialists seeking new roles within the EMEA region. Should you have a requirement for a short term specialist (Contract) or a more longer term resource (Permanent) please Contact Us to enable us to assist you swiftly.

Please view this at http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2602432&trk=hb_side_g

And

Tandemworld within EMEA

+44 (0) 20 8304 7979

info@tandemworld.net

www.tandemworld.net

To place article(s) within our future eNewsletters please Email us.

For Future Sponsorship opportunities please Email us.

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CommitWork presentation “Moving from a J2EE Oracle WebLogic-based application to a NSJSP-based application“ at the HP-Discover 2011 was a success

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Brightstrand Health Check Service