The A la Carte Menu and Security System as well as RSF-HA each have new features to enhance functionality.
Bug Busters Software Engineering has announced Release 3.2 of the A la Carte Menu and Security System (ALC) as well as Release 8.5 of RSF-HA, the company's high availability offering for IBM i.
ALC lets IBM i administrators manage access to all of their system objects and applications from one central place, simply by creating and manipulating menus. RSF-HA is a complete high availability and data replication solution for the IBM i platform, bringing users more power at less cost than competing products, the company says. RSF-HA Release 8.5 updates both the base and HA versions of RSF.
ALC R3.2 delivers enhanced audit reporting and a new tool for converting IBM menus to dynamic ALC menus. With ALC menus, authority can be set for each menu option and users see only those options they are authorized to access. Administrators can regulate access to menus and menu options by user profile, group profile, *PUBLIC authority; and authorization lists. ALC menus and menu options are true IBM i objects, so authority to access them is enforced by the operating system. This makes ALC highly secure, yet flexible.
Adopt the Power
A revolutionary ALC feature allows menu options to adopt the authority of another user profile. This greatly simplifies IBM i security administration, allowing administrators to exclude direct access to production objects, while providing users with all the authority they need to perform approved functions. Rather than having to manage thousands of individual object authorities, ALC lets an administrator manage access to functions, a much more natural way to approach the problem, the company says.
Confirmation
A new feature makes it easy to require that a user give positive confirmation before proceeding with a sensitive function. Users just specify *YES for "Confirm Before Running" for any menu option. A prompt screen will appear whenever the menu option is run, asking the user, "Are you sure?" A reply of *YES is required to continue.
Enhanced Reports
ALC offers several reports to assist in auditing system usage. Various reports can be directed to the display, printer or an outfile. Now, text for menus and menu options can be included in report detail listings. With ALC's reports, an administrator can see at a glance who did what when, and who's authorized to perform which functions.
New Conversion Tool
A new Convert Menu (CVTMNUALC) command makes it easy to convert a static IBM menu to a dynamic ALC menu. Any *DSPF type menu can be converted. Once converted, the menu has access to all the power of ALC, including:
- Set authority for individual menu options
- Hold/release menu options
- Set an option to adopt authority
- Scroll multi-page menus
- Dynamically add, remove and change menu options
- Define global options that appear on many menus
- Confirm before running, and more
Free Trial
Free 30-day trials for ALC 3.2 can be downloaded from http://www.bugbusters.net
RSF-HA Release 8.5
RSF-HA Release 8.5 updates both the base and HA versions of RSF and adds IPv6 compatibility, role swap enhancements, a new tool for finding spooled files, and more.
IPv6
With this release, All RSF commands, options and functions have been updated to support the newest IP address formats for both outbound and inbound connections. While IPv4 addresses of the form n.n.n.n (where n is a number from 0 to 255) are still supported, you can now specify addresses in the form x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x, where each x represents a two-byte hex value from 0000 to FFFF. All valid IPv6 address specifications are supported, including replacing a series of zeros with a double colon ::. . With this enhancement, RSF and RSF-HA are enabled for the future, capable of operating over any network--nearby or far flung--regardless of the addressing scheme used.
Enhanced Role Swap
With this release, high availability role swaps are easier, faster and more flexible.
Previously, a role swap had to be run from the system console. Now, you can run a role swap in batch as well, eliminating the need to be in a particular location to perform the role swap. Several types of virtual role swap are now supported as well, making it easier than ever to test your replication environment. A virtual role swap is quicker than a full swap. With a virtual role swap, the secondary machine is swapped into production, tests are run, data changes are made and then the machine is returned to the backup role. At the end of the process, any changes made on the secondary machine during the virtual role swap are discarded.
New Spool Tool
Many environments, including high availability can generate job logs and other spooled files that contain useful information. The trick is to quickly find the spooled file you want when you need it. A new Find Spooled File command lets you search through the body of spooled files and see a list of those that match your search string. This tool is ideal for finding a specific "needle" in the haystack of spooled files on your system.
Find Spooled File (FNDSPLFRSF)
Type choices, press Enter.
Compare string . . . . . . . . . ___
Wild card character . . . . . . *NONE Character value, *NONE, ?
User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *CURRENT Name, *CURRENT, *ALL
Output queue . . . . . . . . . . *ALL___ Name, *ALL
Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . ____ Name, *LIBL, *CURLIB
Form type . . . . . . . . . . . *ALL Form type, *ALL, *STD
User data . . . . . . . . . . . *ALL User data, *ALL
Compression
You can now specify four different levels of compression--*HIGH, *MEDIUM, *LOW and *NONE--when replicating, sending or archiving libraries, objects and directories. For large libraries, using higher compression can save time overall as overhead for compression is more than made up for by time saved in transmission. These new static compression options compliment RSF's run-time compression options, which allow transmissions to be compressed dynamically, as they occur.
Same-System Remote Journaling
For some time, RSF-HA has allowed remote journaling to be used to transmit changes between two or more systems or partitions. Now, the same remote journaling logic can be used when replicating from one library to another within the same partition. This makes replicating within the same partition more efficient than ever. As always, you can specify the type of replication journaling to use for each library and IFS directory.
User-Defined Options
All RSF "Work With" displays--including the Work With Sync Attributes display used to monitor HA status--now allow users to define their own PDM-like options for the display in addition to the pre-defined numeric options shipped with RSF. Useful sample options are included with RSF 8.5, like WJ (work with jobs associated with the item) and WS (work with spooled files associated with the item.)
Added Leverage
New tools make it easy to perform certain HA functions for many items at once, where previously you were required to handle each item separately. These tools reference the items defined in the Work With Sync Attributes list. The Synchronize From Attributes (SYNCATTRSF) command allows you to start replication for all items in the list. The Check Defined Items (CHKATTRSF) lets you compare source and target libraries for each item in the list. The Archive from Sync Attributes (ARCATTRSF) and Refresh from Sync Attributes (REFATTRSF) commands let your archive or refresh every item in your list.
Each command allows you to filter the list by generic name and target location.
Complete Solution
RSF-HA 8.5 allows you to replicate everything:
- Libraries
- IFS directories
- User profiles
- System values
- Network attributes
- Authorization lists
- Configuration information
- Data queues
- Object-level authorities
- Spooled files
- Message queues
- Data areas
- And more...
Database record changes on the target machine are processed by unique key, greatly increasing flexibility and integrity. RSF determines the appropriate unique key access path automatically. Two-way mirroring is supported, allowing updates to occur to the same files on multiple systems simultaneously.
For more details about features added to each release of RSF, please see: http://www.bugbusters.net/rsf_new.htm.
Competitively Priced
The RSF high availability feature is licensed separately. This complete solution is available for a fraction of the cost of traditional HA implementations.
Free Trial
Free 30-day trials for RSF 8.5 can be downloaded from http://www.bugbusters.net
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