Hi everyone!

Visiting with customers is one of my favorite activities, so I was excited that last week’s Midrange Mixer in Rochester, MN brought in a lot of IBM i users. This time, the event was hosted at the famous Michael’s restaurant (as designated by the hundreds of celebrity photos hanging in the main hallway) in downtown Rochester. We welcomed a large number of customers and prospective customers for cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and Jeopardy-style games. I must say, it’s amazing how much easier those questions are to answer when you are NOT sitting in the hot seat!

The evening’s table conversations were very stimulating, with numerous companies seeking assistance with their security projects. PowerTech’s recent introduction of Network Security Version 6 and other enhancement projects in the works were a topic of discussion, as was our great no-charge compliance assessment solution. I know Tom Huntington encountered a similar response regarding multi-platform scheduling, and other Help/Systems specialties. I must say, it’s good to hear about healthy business initiatives again.

Thanks must go to our own Heath Kath, Technical Sales Consultant for SEQUEL Software, for his willingness to don the (in)famous Robot suit, and stand out on the streets of Rochester to welcome everyone to the party! (Thanks also go to my over-six-feet tall parents for ensuring that the suit does not fit me!)

If you are also embarking on a new security project, drop me a line to find out how PowerTech can put our resources to work for you. With skilled security engineers, and our well-known security software solutions, we have the tools to get the job done right—regardless of your security or compliance objectives.

As part of summer, we are slowing our weekly Webinar schedule to approximately two per month. Look for our security workshops and Webinars to resume their normal schedule in September. As always, the PowerTech Website and PowerNews electronic newsletter are a great source of information, and both sources have the upcoming event schedule for June, July and August.

Speaking of summer, I am taking time off work next week to take my kids on a highly anticipated vacation to the southern climes of Boca Raton, Florida. Following my visit to Orlando for COMMON last month, I saw what a fabulous place this would be for a family trip to the beach. Thanks to my foreign exchange student “brother” for his hospitality at the beautiful ocean-front resort he manages in Deerfield Beach.

Drop me a line at robin.tatam@powertech.com for more information about PowerTech, or visit www.powertech.com.

Cheers!

- rt

It’s already been a fun Spring here at PowerTech, including a visit to a Minnesota Twins baseball game in their new outdoor stadium, and a boat cruise on Lake Minnetonka with the local ISACA chapter. With the return of the weekly “weenie cart”(a fundraiser hot-dog stand run by Help/Systems’ Fun Committee), and temperatures up in the 90s, we are barreling towards Summer like no tomorrow!

It actually has seemed like a short week for me, as I headed out on the road again. This time, I am paying my first visit to the SEQUEL office in Schaumburg, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, to conduct my next security workshop. I am really having fun with these events, and I love spending time with security officers and administrators anxious to learn more about securing an IBM i server platform. We are discussing future locations for our next workshop and it seems that Dallas, Texas, is currently at the top of the list—probably sometime later in the summer. I believe this workshop is one of the best ways to get a half-day of IBM i security education, so let us know if you would like to see your city on the list.

This morning, I am paying a visit to a Chicago-based customer to discuss their security projects, and then flying the short hop back to Minneapolis after lunch.

Back in the office, the team is putting the final touches to the June edition of our electronic newsletter, PowerNews. If you are not currently receiving it, be sure to sign up at www.powertech.com. In addition, I wanted to to share with you that development is now underway on the next release of Compliance Monitor, and I got an exciting sneak peak before leaving on Tuesday. Having been a developer for part of my career, I know things don’t happen overnight, but I am excited to see how this project is shaping up.

For those of you reading this in the U.S., have a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day holiday weekend. For those of you overseas, this is a day where we commemorate the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. I am excited to be spending part of the upcoming weekend visiting my host family from my time as a foreign exchange student “several” years ago in Bellevue, Iowa. I can’t wait to seem them as it has been five years since my last visit—way too long!

Cheers!

- rt

After spending the first half of the week in Nashville, Tennessee, I jumped on a plane to make the trek north to Buffalo, New York. My first stop was the beautiful Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel in downtown Niagara Falls, 15 miles north of Buffalo. The hotel is just a short walk from the three famous waterfalls that are the city’s namesake, and that impact the Niagara River that straddles the border between the United States and Canada. Although not exceptionally high, these falls are the most powerful in North America and are an important source of hydroelectric power, and one of the most recognized landmarks in the world.

Seneca Casino, one of PowerTech’s valued customers, graciously offered to host our 3^rd IBM i security workshop in their well-appointed conference facilities. The half-day session was another highly interactive one, and was accompanied by a fantastic lunch and free PowerTech giveaways. After bragging that previous sessions had finished within 5 minutes of the scheduled 4 hours, of course this session ran over; simply because of the great interaction and discussion with the attendees. For that reason, no one seemed to mind, and everyone seemed happy with the content that we provided, with topics that included system values, exit points, and object-level security.

Before heading back to Buffalo, I did make the short walk down to the breathtaking American and Bridal Veil Falls. If you have never seen this stunning sight—especially in the Winter—then it is hard to describe the power and sheer natural force of these natural wonders. While I had previously seen the view from the Canadian side in July, this was my first visit to the U.S. side. While a still-photograph doesn’t really do it justice, I hope my panorama conveys a fraction of its majesty.

The remainder of the evening was spent with the large group that comprises the Midrange Users Group of Western New York (www.mugwny.com). On this night, I presented a combined session called The Top 10 IBM i Security Vulnerabilities and The State of IBM i Security Study, which is based on the popular PowerTech white paper that is published annually. From the reaction of the crowd, some of the issues were quite eye-opening. Hopefully the information I provided will assist them with performing security improvements that might prevent corporate data from flowing out of the network as fast as water over the falls! As always, I offered to conduct a no-charge security review for anyone interested in using our fabulous automated Compliance Assessment solution.

Fortunately, the “lake effect snow” that I had been told about plaguing the region held off for the most part, and I was able to start my return travels on time. Ironically, while everyone had cautioned me about the likelihood of flight delays in and out of Buffalo, and my knowledge of the prevalence of seasonal delays at my connecting hub of Chicago’s O’Hare airport, it was my final destination of Des Moines, Iowa, that almost derailed my return. As we were beginning our descent into Des Moines, the pilot informed us that airport had just closed due to the blowing snow from a winter storm. We immediately went into holding pattern awaiting further instructions. The captain indicated that we had an extra 40 minutes worth of fuel in addition to the fuel required for a return to Chicago! Fortunately, we didn’t require much of either as the airport subsequently reopened and we were cleared to land after about 20 minutes of circling. I was so relieved that I didn’t have to end a fantastic work week with a winter travel horror story!

Thanks again for everyone’s continued hospitality on the road, both for the workshops and the user groups. I would be remiss if I didn’t also thank my team back in Minneapolis, especially Katie Carnicom, who tirelessly facilitates the numerous agendas (for me, as well as other members of staff), complicated travel schedules, and shipments of the t-shirts and presentation materials. It takes unbelievable organization to put these events on back-to-back, and she does an amazing job that allows me look good with little effort on my part!

This week will be a week to try and catch up, and then next week I will be off again, taking the workshop and user group presentation to Reno, Nevada, billed as “The Biggest Little City In The World.” That will be immediately followed by Portland, Oregon, the week of March 8^th.

It was another week on the road, this time heading slightly south to St Louis, Missouri. It was great to get away from the snow, although the air seemed just as cold as in Minneapolis. To say that it would be nice to feel a warm breeze at this point would be an understatement!

One of my first duties in town was to conduct our weekly PowerTech Webinar. The Webinar was titled Protect IBM i (AS400) Data From FTP, ODBC, and Remote Command, and it’s always one of the most popular Webinars that we do. It still surprises me that we have so many people attend this topic, and ask such great questions such as why IBM i is often exposed from a lack of access control, or auditing of network-initiated transactions. I suppose the statistic that 65% of IBM i servers that we audit still have no exit programs registered might explain some of the interest—even after two decades of awareness of this problem.

I was thrilled to also be presenting the first session of our new regional security workshops to a full room of attendees. For several hours, we whittled our way through numerous important aspects of IBM i security—from system values to adopted authority and from special authorities to network access. Based on the positive comments made on the evaluation forms, the class was a resounding success! It always makes it fun when an idea comes to fruition, and especially when it is so well received. Thanks to the IBM i team at MSI Systems Integrators for hosting the event at their downtown facilities, and for providing lunch for all of the attendees.

After the class, I traveled the 90 miles or so to Jefferson City and engaged with the mid-Missouri users group, presenting a session titled Top 10 Security Vulnerabilities. I would like to offer my appreciation to Huber and Associates for inviting me to present at their location, and also for the interest and interaction I received from the group. This presentation actually ran long because of some of the great discussion that we were having. Before I left, we emptied another box of cool PowerTech t-shirts, and raffled another gift-card.

I am now going to be back in the office for a couple of weeks to catch up on some of my other daily responsibilities, including helping host our upcoming online training classes for Network Security. After that, I will head out again for the next workshop and user group stops, this time in Nashville, Tennessee, and Buffalo, New York. I am especially excited about going to Buffalo, as it is being hosted at a PowerTech customer location. Plans are also being worked on for Reno and Portland events in early March, so if you work in those areas, we invite you to join us.

Before I close this week’s entry, I want to take a moment to say that my thoughts are with the family of IBM’s Craig Johnson, who died this past week in a car accident in Northern Iowa. Blizzard and whiteout conditions on Interstate 35 led to a massive 40-vehicle pile-up. This is the exact same route that I take weekly between Des Moines and Minneapolis, and I just happened to have stayed in Minneapolis that weekend due to my back-to-back travel plans. It certainly brings home how life can change in an instant, and how important it is to live each day as if it is your last.

Stay Warm!

Well, last week was a busy, but fantastic week. My travels started on Monday afternoon with a non-stop flight from the chilly air of Minneapolis to John F. Kennedy International in New York. Actually, I was surprised how fast the flight went, and after a few short hours I was programming the rental car’s GPS and heading into Manhattan.

It’s been 20 years since I was last there, and though the skyline might have been tragically altered forever, the hustle and bustle of the city that never sleeps is the same. I came to the United States in the summer of 1988 as a British foreign exchange student, and one of my most vivid memories is of being in New York City at night, and riding a tour bus across one of the bridges into Manhattan. It was one of the most spectacular nighttime skyline views that I had ever seen. As an amateur photographer, one of my personal goals of this trip was to try to recreate that view, and I was able to work my way down to the water line and get this photo.

New York Skyline

My work agenda started on Tuesday morning with a visit to a customer on Long Island. We had a great discussion regarding the ways they were using several of the PowerTech tools to help administer and audit access from users that normally would be hard to control, such as programmers. We also talked about how they see their developing security requirements.

After a 90-minute car-ferry ride from Port Jefferson, NY to Bridgeport, CT, it was a short hop down to Norwalk to meet my first user group. The group had selected the topic of “7 Habits of Highly Secure Organizations” and, for a couple of hours, we enjoyed dinner and interacted about the subject of auditing, access control, and regulations and policy. I raffled away a Starbucks gift card, as well as a number of free t-shirts, and it was a great evening.

Wednesday was a pretty easy day, riding the ferry back to Long Island, and then navigating to the location of the Long Island user group. I was met with a fantastic turnout from a crowd of very active System i users. The group started the evening early with some PHP training led by one of their own members, and there was a fun slideshow on some System i/iSeries/AS/400 history. I presented the “Top 10 Security Vulnerabilities,” based on data extracted from our annual security study. I really enjoyed interacting with this group, which included several of my own customers, as they had lots of great questions and discussion points. After another gift card drawing and distribution of a big box of t-shirts, I was off to my next stop in Morris Plains, NJ.

As a side note, if you are not from the East Coast, a GPS is a prerequisite to navigate your way around a city as large as this. Although mine had some trouble acquiring a signal at times (ahhh! technology) and wanted to send me in circles, I managed to successfully navigate the 90 or so miles to my destination.

Thursday morning begin early with another customer visit to a great customer of Help/Systems and now a new PowerTech customer. I learned about some of the challenges that they had faced trying to implement an object security infrastructure. I offered some advice and also offered the PowerTech services team to provide assistance if desired. After all, as I have stated in my blog several times, we are not just a software company.

Thursday evening had me in Fairfield, NJ, at my final user group meeting. I spent several hours with another lively crowd of about 30 people who learned about the dangers of “FTP, ODBC, and Remote Command.” I included a small demo of how simple it is to access corporate data through common tools, and the conversation was very active, which is typical after people see just how easy it can be. I cleared out my final box of t-shirts, handed out my last gift card, and headed the 90 miles to Philadelphia.

I wanted to use this travel opportunity to visit with another (very well-known) customer on Friday morning. They are an active user of several of our security tools, and are evaluating another one to add to the suite. I spent a couple of hours learning about how they are implementing security in their environment, as well as identifying areas where we can provide some relief.

This is one of my favorite types of work. Meeting with customers to discuss their successes and future needs, and also mingling with the types of user groups that I used be an attendee at in my past jobs. These are the folks that are the diehards of the technology on which our software runs. You don’t have to sell them on the attributes of the System i (or AS/400, as many still call it), and their biggest complaint is that it is not more prevalent than it is.

I want to thank the customers who took time from their busy schedules to meet with me, and also the three user groups that invited me to present to their membership. At the request of a number of people, I am looking forward to returning to the area in the future—to meet with the user groups again as they support the local ‘i’ community, and to host our IBM i security workshop.

I am finalizing this blog entry on Friday afternoon, while awaiting my return flight from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After a brief return to Minneapolis, I leave again to head to St. Louis, Missouri, to teach a security workshop, and give a user group presentation in Jefferson City.

Interestingly, although I added “ferry” to the list of my various modes of transportation used last week, I still have yet to use a train!