May 2009 Newsletter
RJS Calls COMMON 2009 a Success
COMMON 2009 was exciting and successful for many reasons. The opportunity to listen to our customers and business partners and meet new people helps us think of new ways to enhance our products and service offerings. We were proud to showcase two of our business partners in particular. Sophos, a leading provider of network security solutions, and Datacap who provides a sophisticated front end capture solution to RJS’ WebDocs document management system.
RJS President and CTO Richard J. Schoen announced the availability of DeliverNow – our new integrated report delivery solution capable of managing and distributing reports from a number of environments including IBM i, Windows and AIX. Bill Whalen from the RJS Sales Team spoke to an audience of Independent Software Vendors about the offering of RJS products through the IBM Smart Business initiative.
In conjunction with the COMMON 2009 Expo, RJS is excited to offer up to 50% off selected software products until June 30th. It is our way of saying thank you for your support over the years and allowing you to continue to make improvements to your IT environment during difficult economic conditions. If you haven’t received information on this special offer, call your RJS sales representative for details.
Jerry Olson - VP Sales & Marketing sales@rjssoftware.com
The Founder's Corner: Whether i, p, or Windows, RJS is Here for You
I just returned from the COMMON conference and expo in Reno, and the most important thing I learned from listening to IBM at the opening session is that they no longer consider IMB i to be more than simply an OS running on a Power systems box. This is a significant event as we're starting to see a small, though very real, shift by some customers towards selecting ERP and other business systems running on platforms that don't include IBM i.
RJS will always remain committed to the native IBM i platform and to supporting our customers using that environment. However, we want to make sure our customers know that even if they do select another platform, our document management, electronic forms, workflow and report delivery products are all very capable products running in an IBM i or multi-platform environment as well. For those of you committed to IBM i, we hope you will be on the platform for a long time. But if Windows or some other platform is in your future, feel free to give us a call and we can discuss how your information delivery investment is protected by continuing to choose RJS as your valued information delivery provider.
Richard J. Schoen - President, CTO richard@rjssoftware.com
Case Study
Sophos and RJS Help Conserve School to Conserve Valuable Bandwidth and Increase Security
Sophos blocks spam and protects against the use of unauthorized applications.
Background
Like most modern schools, Conserve School near Land O' Lakes, WI, uses the Internet for academic and administrative purposes but, because it’s a boarding school, its students and faculty also use the Internet for personal purposes. As many headlines attest, the Internet can be a dangerous place fraught with viruses, malware and spam.
Challenge
At first, students and faculty utilized a single T1 line for all their Internet needs due to the expense of leasing communication lines to their remote location. The bandwidth demands are substantial due to the ever-growing volume of downloaded multimedia content. The school's legitimate Internet traffic is heavy, but not intolerably so. The problem was that hackers had been hijacking the school's computers and using them to relay spam. This consumed considerable bandwidth. Inbound spam was another problem. In addition to its impact on bandwidth utilization, recipients wasted considerable time dealing with their cluttered inboxes.
Downloaded software presented another challenge. Students are allowed to use some applications during their personal time, but not when they should be in class or studying. Other applicatinos are not permitted at all. The school needed a way to ensure that students' computers contain only appropriate applications and that those applications are used only at appropriate times.
Solution
The Conserve School installed a Sophos ES1000 Email Appliance as well as Sophos Endpoint Security and Control software on its desktops and laptop computers. This protects against spam, malware, and data loss as well as combining anti-virus and anti-spyware functionality and a client firewall.
As an integral part of the solution, the school also installed Sophos' administrative console. Using the console, an administrator can remove certain applications from students' desktops. For example, while the school allows students to use Web-based IM, it doesn't allow them to use client-based IM software because of the security threats inherent in those programs.
Results
In the approximately year and a half since Conserve School installed the Sophos Email Appliance, it has blocked almost four million emails. That includes approximately 3.5 million unauthorized email relays, 0.5 million inbound spam messages and 3,000 emails that contained viruses. On an average day, the appliance blocks about 70% or more of the emails that arrive.
“Our experience with Sophos has been great,” said Bill Esslinger, Information Technology Manager at Conserve School. “It’s done a phenomenal job on blocking spam. And stopping all of the email relaying that had been occurring has increased the bandwidth that we have available for browsing.”
Because of its isolated location and the resulting cost of Internet access, Conserve School has to be frugal with its use of bandwidth. The Sophos products help the school to do that. Recipients get valid email, but spam doesn’t stand a chance. And students can use approved applications, but not applications that pose security threats or that inappropriately hog bandwidth. As a result, Conserve School’s valuable Internet resource delivers a higher return on the school’s investment.
RJS Services Corner: Protecting Your Company's Data
Understanding Data Leakage Protection and why it Matters
Technologically savvy employees use e-mail, Web browsing, social networking, and Web based applications to improve their personal productivity, whether working in the office, on the road, or at home. This mindset blurs the lines between work and home with the effect that sending work home using a Web based e-mail account, connecting to a home PC from work, sharing information on social networking sites, posting to blogs, and emailing and instant messaging friends occurs frequently with little or no regard to whether it is appropriate or secure in a business context.
Defining Data Leakage Protection
After years of battling intrusions, viruses, and spam, organizations now find themselves wrestling with other growing security issues: Data Leakage – the intentional or accidental exposure of information ranging from legally protected personal information to intellectual property and trade secrets. Today’s data security breaches encompass the wider IT environments, such as:
- Lost or stolen laptops
- Corporate and Web-based email
- Flash disks, external hard drives, USB thumb drives, MP3 players and iPods
- Optical Media
- Mobile phones/Smart phones
- Other web sites
- Social networking tools and other applications such as instant messaging and FTP programs
The inadvertent exposure of confidential information has become the number one threat for many organizations today, particularly when financial data or personally identifiable information, which may be protected by various laws and regulations, is exposed. Information protection and control defined as monitoring, encrypting, filtering and blocking sensitive information contained in data in use, data in rest, data in motion – is an important part of any overall data protection strategy.
Greg Schmidt - Director of Technology Services greg@rjssoftware.com
Tech Corner: Electronic Forms - No Spool File Required!
Historically, IBM i-based Electronic Forms solutions require that you generate a spool file in order to merge your data with your pre-designed form overlay. Not any more. RJS Software Systems’ new iForms product allows you to create your forms directly from IBM i data. Now, you can simply query your database and pass the information directly into your custom designed form for printing or electronic filing in PDF, HTML, CSV, Excel, XML, PCL, RTF and other formats.
If generating spool files is already a part of your process, iForms can work with that too. iForms allows you to create form overlays for existing spool files which allows you to continue utilizing your existing reports and transition gradually from spool file-based forms to data-driven forms at your own pace. By offering the flexibility of creating both spool file-based and data driven forms and reports, iForms helps you eliminate pre-printed forms costs and delivers information more efficiently to your users and customers.
Contact RJS Software for more information or visit www.rjssoftware.com
Larry John - Technical Manager larry@rjssoftware.com
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