Hi everyone!

As we continue to gear up for a busy fall season here at PowerTech, I am airport bound again. I am headed back from Nashville, Tennessee, where I visited with a couple of customers and spoke at the Optimum Software User Conference. I introduced the attendees to “The 7 Habits of Highly Secure Organizations.” This is a presentation that I’ve given to numerous audiences including COMMON, and it speaks to the critical habits that are requisites for any chance at compliance. Readers of this blog were introduced to the “habits” recently, as were the Powertech newsletter subscribers.

Back home in Minnesota, we are in the process of establishing dates for our popular security education workshops. So far, November is going to include Seattle, Tampa, and Orlando. December will find me in Las Vegas. If you live in or around one of these cities, be sure to register at www.powertech.com as seats fill fast! I guess we were onto something with the idea of bringing good quality education to YOU for very little cost!

This week I was graciously invited to attend meetings with local user groups in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey to present to their membership. We’re also eyeing those locations for additional workshops. It’s hard to believe that it has almost been a year since I was out there last, and I am looking forward to returning there in January.

A number of customers have approached us recently about using their 2010 budget money before they lose it. PowerTech can help show how those monies can be used to enhance IBM i perimeter security, control and audit powerful users, and ease the burden of on-going compliance reporting. Likewise, if you are anxiously awaiting the start of 2011 in order to access new funds, now is a fantastic time to call PowerTech and ask about ways you can get the protection you need now. Beat potential price increases with both of these options, as well as gain the ability to lock in current maintenance prices with an extended support contract.

Personally, I am very excited to be a part of PowerTech’s investment in security technology and I have been witness to development roadmaps being established into 2012. No other security organization is investing more in the ‘i’ community: Supplying speakers for regional and national user groups, hosting security workshops around the country, and making face-to-face visits to customers. Help/Systems’ acquisition of PowerTech has made all of these activities a reality.

Our solution developers have been working diligently on version 3 of Compliance Monitor, our flagship compliance reporting solution. A brand new foundation positions this solution to solve all of your compliance reporting needs by including a number of valuable enhancements. Speaking of enhancements, Authority broker is also going to see exciting new capabilities added over the upcoming months. This turnkey solution has proven extremely popular with those who are charged with controlling and auditing powerful users.

Before I go, I wanted to share an image I took of Nashville. In my mind, this sign symbolized the fun and exuberance found in the “Music City.”

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

Cheers!

- rt

Hi everyone!

As I mentioned in my last blog, Help/Systems recently welcomed a number of customers to our Eden Prairie, Minnesota, headquarters. These customers comprise an advisory board, which involves a roundtable discussion about real world product usage, corporate directions, and to give us feedback about the directions and areas of corporate strategy that are important to them.

While we hope that everything is running smoothly, we don’t assume that blindly. In addition to these roundtable meetings, we also use ongoing customer surveys to gauge whether we are meeting (or hopefully exceeding) our stringent quality goals. As the first ISO 9001 software company in the United States, these metrics are critically important to our business.

The overwhelming message from this year’s board members was that Help/Systems continues to lead the industry in both software quality and post-sale support. One area of discussion included how Help/Systems has expanded its global presence through organic growth, as well as through strategic acquisitions. Sometimes we are busy and forget that customers don’t have visibility into the effort that goes into this continued expansion, and as a privately-held company, the message may not always be conveyed about the investment being made within our four walls. This includes the SEQUEL product line as well as the PowerTech suite of security solutions, and so some customers inquired about the future of our security solutions. I am here to tell you that the acquisition of PowerTech was very strategic for Help/Systems, and that we are currently entrenched in numerous product development initiatives. While acquisitions often result in staff changes, we never stopped being fully operational with a full complement of sales, technical support, and experienced development expertise ready to assist customers with IBM i security and compliance requirements. In fact, by combining resources with Help/Systems’ own strong development and ISO 9001 quality control infrastructure, we are better positioned than ever before!

Next week I will be at COMMON’s Fall meeting. My participation includes conducting four security sessions and some meet-and-greets at the Help/Systems and PowerTech booths. I welcome a chance to meet you, so please stop by if you are going to be there.

It was another enjoyable week from a photography standpoint, and I have a couple of autumn views to share with you. These images were both taken in the Apostle Islands in northern Wisconsin, a collection of 22 islands in Lake Superior. The first image is of Bayfield, a quaint harbor town and host to an annual Apple Festival in October. It is also a popular year-round destination for kayakers looking to explore the islands. This is certainly a spectacularly beautiful part of the upper Midwest as the trees busy themselves into a myriad of colors. From the lake, the view produced a striking range of greens, oranges, and burning reds.

The next image is of the lighthouse on “Devil’s Island.” Clear waters and beautiful sandstone sea caves mark the northern shore of this uninhabited land. I say uninhabited, but the journey did include the sighting of two bald eagles and a lone black bear roaming the island shore.

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

If you would like to learn more about Help/Systems’ comprehensive line of automation and operation solutions, contact “Mr Robot,” Tom Huntington, at tom.huntington@helpsystems.com, or visit www.helpsystems.com.

Cheers!

- rt

Hi everyone!

After almost three weeks on the road in southern climes, I have returned to Minneapolis just in time to witness trees turning color and overnight temperatures slipping down into to the 40s. I am looking forward to being back in the office with the PowerTech team for a couple of weeks before I head South to San Antonio to present security sessions at COMMON.

Last week’s ISACA risk management conference in Las Vegas was a great success, and I had numerous conversations with auditors, IT staff, and others who were looking to understand more about managing security and compliance. While the IBM i platform may not be as common as others in the enterprise, I am happy to say that there were still a number of larger companies present who are entrenched on i. The new PowerTech security brochure was hard to keep on the table!

Based on various conversations, it seems that “proactive compliance” is something that everyone is aspiring to achieve, regardless of their platform affiliation. This is a term I use to describe the server doing the heavy lifting, rather than having to react to audits and security events. With fewer resources and more events to review, having to manually dig through configurations and event logs is something that is not going to be accomplished on a day-to-day basis. As such, there was a lot of interest in our Interact solution to report events in real-time to an enterprise monitoring solution. There was also much discussion about exit points, and it seemed that this is still an area that is thoroughly under-secured. Of course, we created our Network Security solution specifically to address that issue and so we are already setting up trials of this great solution for several of those organizations.

While I was in town, I also took the opportunity to meet one-on-one with a couple of large IBM i shops that have been looking at our security suite. I appreciated their time and interest, and I’m sure we’ll be doing business very soon. Las Vegas has always been a stable for IBM i systems, and many gaming organizations rely on the platform’s legendary security capabilities to host their application information. We are also considering this city to host one of our half-day workshops in the coming months.

One reason I am in Minneapolis this week is to spend time with the customers who have come to participate on the Help/Systems Advisory Board. This is a two-day event that gives us great insight into the various business challenges of our customers, and provides help with development direction for all of our various solutions. Of course, it’s not all about business; we are also planning to have some fun while they are here

You will be happy to know that I did get an opportunity to do some exploring while I was in Las Vegas last week. The first image I am posting here is a night shot of Hoover Dam, including the gargantuan new bridge that spans the famous chasm from one side of the canyon to the other. This bridge marks the state line for Nevada and Arizona, and also the jump from Mountain time to Pacific time. Unfortunately, I was unable to drive across the span as it is not going to be dedicated for another month. However, passing under the immense cement structure is awe-inspiring, and it’s a wonder to me how such a structure could ever stand up. The shot I have included was taken in near total darkness using a 60-second long exposure (as shown by the airplane trail coming over the hill in the center).

The second image I want to share is Arch Rock inside the Valley of Fire, Nevada’s largest and oldest state park. Located just 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas, the park is part of the Mojave Desert. I have visited the area several times, and each time I am humbled by the vast wilderness formed during the age of the dinosaur, approximately 150 million years ago. To anyone who has never visited this region, simply imagine landing on Mars! The red sandstone rocks and panoramic vistas are spectacularly desolate and dramatic. It’s amazing that such a landscape can be found so close (and yet seem so far) from the lights and dazzle of Las Vegas.

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

Cheers!

- rt

Hi everyone!

As we quickly roll towards back-to-school time, Mother Nature is cooking Minneapolis with summer temperatures and the kind of humidity that the Midwest is known for. Despite the heat, the city still has a few fun tricks up her sleeve with the Minnesota State Fair and Renaissance Festival just around the corner.

Last weekend, I spent a few days up at the (much) cooler Lake Superior—a quick 2 hour drive from the Twin Cities. Although the drive along the North shore is renowned for its spectacular Fall colors, the scenery along the way was still very beautiful and afforded me the two photographic images included here. The first is of the dramatic Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth, a vertical lift structure which, at its peak, raises and lowers 25-30 times a day to allow tall ships to pass under it’s road and walkway. The other image is of Split Rock Lighthouse, a dramatic cliff-top building that celebrated the centennial of its first lighting just a few weeks ago. Although it is no longer a working lighthouse, it was built in response to the loss of 29 ships in a storm some five years earlier. You can find Split Rock Lighthouse State Park about an hour north of Duluth. I can’t wait to go back and experience this whole region later in the season.

Back at PowerTech, the Fall is already gearing up to be filled with the colors of busy! I have a security workshop scheduled in Dallas on September 1, and one in Atlanta on September 8.  We anticipate a couple more workshops to be scheduled before closing out the year, so watch this space! After Atlanta, I head to Las Vegas for the ISACA Risk and Compliance Conference, and then on to San Antonio to present four security sessions at COMMON in early October. If you plan to be at any of these events, I invite you to stop by and say hi!

One of the initiatives that the PowerTech staff is currently working on is to give our open-source security policy a facelift. This popular document will continue to be a free resource to the IBM i security community, and we invite anyone to download, edit, and return the changes to us for possible (and credited) inclusion in a future edition. If you do not currently have a security policy—and a surprising number of ‘i’ shops don’t—then this is a great place to get started. Look for the announcement of the publication of this updated document in a future blog/twitter/newsletter posting.

I am headed off to Pittsburg, PA, tomorrow to visit a couple of large customers. We are planning to discuss how our tools are deployed to protect their Enterprise, and to look for some ways that they can get squeeze even more mileage out of their investment. As regular readers of this blog will know, this is one of my favorite “pastimes,” as I love to see our solutions hard at work!

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

Cheers!

- rt

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

Although it is normally nice to return home after a stint of living out of a suitcase, it was definitely a shame to leave the sun and surf of Orlando. There must be something about someone who lives in a “cooler” part of the world heading to warmer climates, as last week literally flew by. Today is rainy and cold in Minneapolis, and I am already aching to hop the quick three-hour flight back down to the sandy beaches. (Not that I spent any time there during the conference, of course!)

In all seriousness, the COMMON annual meeting was a great success for us. Three days of exposure at the expo talking to existing customers about their successes, as well as new faces that are learning how PowerTech can bring so much value to IBM i security projects.

While it seems a few of the attendees were unaware that PowerTech is a member of the Help/Systems family until they saw the joint booth and marquee, the number of people that walked by and indicated that they were already running tools from either one or both sides of the house was very impressive. Of course, we are not resting on our laurels: Today marks the official release of version 6 of Network Security, our leading exit point solution. While talking to expo attendees, it was also fun to discover when they were running just one of the PowerTech tools and to introduce them to another one of the modules.

I also enjoyed presenting three educational sessions on security topics to COMMON attendees:

• 7 Habits of Highly Secure Organizations

• State of IBM i Security Study 2010

• How To Prevent a Data Leak on IBM i

There were over 1000 attendees at this year’s event; up significantly from last year’s event in Reno, Nevada. As an exhibitor, this was quite noticeable from the foot traffic passing through the expo. Next year’s event in Minneapolis, MN will (hopefully) provide IBM with a great opportunity to represent the platform with resources from Rochester, MN. All of the Help/Systems companies will have a strong presence there, as always.

As I mentioned, Network Security’s new release began shipping this week. To celebrate, I will try to scoop an interview with Jill Martin, PowerTech’s product support manager, to tell us a little about the process of getting a product release out of the door, as well as some of the background on what is new and improved. Watch for that next week…

Last but not least, congratulations to Chris Smith of Wells Fargo, lucky winner of our Windows 7 Netbook giveaway last week.

Cheers!

- rt

I am not sure what happened to Spring, but as Orlando enjoys temperatures in the mid-90s, one could say summer is already here.

I am in Central Florida this week to attend the 50^th Anniversary COMMON annual meeting and exposition, hosted at the Orlando Marriott resort. This is my first time touching down in Florida, and I have not been disappointed. Although I do not have the complexion to ever consider becoming a “sun worshipper,” there is an immediate recognition of why this state attracts thousands of visitors from around the world: Clean streets, pristine buildings, and endless entertainment and activities for people of every age. I arrived a couple of days early and drove over to Cocoa Beach, and then down to West Palm Beach to visit my “brother” from my time as a foreign exchange student. It was wonderful to reconnect with him after a couple of years.

The conference started on Sunday with the normal pre-meeting lab sessions, and then formally commenced on Monday after with a large opening session hosted by COMMON president Wayne Madden, and keynote speaker Ross Mauri, General Manager of IBM Power Systems.

The exposition has been very busy for all of the Help/Systems’ family of companies, significantly up from the event last year in Reno. With a COMMON call for more participation from its members, hopefully this is something that continues to rebuild and increase. It has been a pleasure to visit with existing and prospective customers alike. It seems security is still very much on the minds of the attendees, with interest from every industry and every size organization within those industries.

We have been signing up large numbers of attendees who are interested in winning the beautiful Gateway netbook, and have been handing out logo t-shirts from SEQUEL, Help/Systems, and of course, PowerTech by the box.

Well, I have to run as the expo is about to begin again. Based on the last couple of days, we will need every resource available on the expo floor; a great problem to have!

If you were not able to attend this year’s meeting, I hope to see you all at next year’s event in Help/Systems’ hometown of Minneapolis, MN, from May 1 through 4.

Have a wonderful week!

- rt

Well, I am finally back in Minneapolis with no scheduled plans for travel until COMMON at the beginning of May. Of course, that can change at a moment’s notice so if you need any security services, let me know. Have bag; will travel!

I’d like to give a “Thank You” to Jill Martin for updating us here last week about her activities while I took a couple of (almost) vacation days in and around London with my children. What a spectacularly intense city that is! There is so much culture and history shoe-horned into a fairly small geographical space, and when you add in the vast population of commuters and visitors, you could be excused for becoming totally overwhelmed. One of the keys to a successful visit to London is understanding the incredible public transportation systems, and to not run yourself ragged trying to accomplish too much. (Easier said than done!)

From a professional perspective, it was a very successful trip. Although phones and e-mail are quick, cheap, and efficient methods of communication, there is something irreplaceable about an old-fashioned, face-to-face meeting and a firm handshake. Spending time with the Help/Systems International sales teams from the UK, France, and Switzerland was very enlightening, as we discussed and compared the security requirements of IBM i customers in the United States and Europe. I also ran through the PowerTech security information with the technical support team prior to a customer workshop in Farnborough. We had to move the event due to more registered attendees than seats in the Help/Systems office, and it was a fantastic four hours that flew by as we covered everything from user profile configuration to system values, to best practices for object authority configuration.

Since last visiting the U.K., one of the things that was noticeably different for me was how credit and debit retail transactions are now entirely “chip-and-PIN” based. If you are reading this from the U.S., you may have no idea what I am talking about—just as I had no idea until I got there. There are two main challenges with credit cards transactions at the point of sale using the more traditional “swipe and sign” technique:

1. Determining that the physical card is not a counterfeit. The availability of swipe devices that read all of the data from a card’s magnetic strip means that it is not difficult to manufacture cards that appear to be completely legitimate, and that swipe with all of the information of a genuine card.
2. Verifying that the card user is the actual owner of the card. This is normally accomplished by comparing the signature of the user with some form of formal identification such as a driver’s license. Unfortunately, this puts the responsibility of identity verification on the shoulders of the retail organization, instead of with the card user. Comparing a (commonly out-of-date) photo to a person’s physical likeness slows down transactions, and is fraught with human error. In my U.S. travel experience, it is rare for a sales clerk to even check the signature. Although it is against most cardholder agreements, I often write “Ask for ID” on the signature panel of my cards, and that does seem to help prompt a clerk to check my credentials. Unfortunately, if they “catch” a person trying to use someone else’s card, I have witnessed people successfully justifying it to the clerk.

By the end of 2006, U.K. retailers joined the initiatives of several other European nations and fully adopted a new point-of-sale mechanism that uses so-called smart cards, more commonly referred to “chip-and-PIN” cards. These cards, which look like regular credit cards, contain a small micro-chip that is read by a special reader device that looks similar to any other credit card processing machine but allows the card to be inserted. The embedded chip helps authenticate the card, thereby addressing the first challenge above. The requirement for a personal PIN to be entered instead of a traditional signature solves the second challenge, as the assumption is that your PIN number is highly confidential.

Use of smart-cards provides a couple of additional advantages over traditional signature transactions. First, most of the readers are portable devices, so the entire transaction can be handled without having to hand over your credit card to a complete stranger, as is common in the United States. Second, disabled users can now more easily use credit cards even when signatures are difficult or impossible.

While countries that use smart cards report significant declines in credit card fraud, there are currently a few disadvantages to this technology—especially for foreign travelers. Card numbers from PIN-based cards are being used fraudulently more easily in non-PIN countries, as no PIN is required. While most locations still have the capability to swipe cards from chipless cards, this becomes more difficult with unattended point-of-sale devices such as ticket machines and, from my own personal experience, clerks that are not particularly well-trained on processing a transaction using a chip-less card. Naturally, as additional countries adopt the smart card technology, these challenges will become less and less of an issue.

Upon my return last week, I began to research why this type of technology is not currently in-use in the United States. I was surprised to learn that it appears to be based purely upon the massive cost of replacing every point-of-sale terminal in comparison with the relatively low cost of credit card fraud here. However, as more and more countries adopt this technology, it will place pressure onto the U.S. to adopt it as well. I personally think that it would be a huge step forward in getting control of international credit card fraud.

Before I wrap up for this week, I would like to thank everyone that sent me 40^th birthday wishes, and also to my Minneapolis cohorts—I mean colleagues—that “decorated” my office in black prior to my return. Payback is a …. Well, you know the expression!

Regards,

- rt

Robin’s not the only one on the road!

As Robin has been criss-crossing the U.S. and flying over the pond to visit the Old Country, I have been on a whirlwind tour myself. I started by visiting RSA in San Francisco, CA for a few days, before stopping in our Seattle, WA office.

I have attended COMMON and the IBM Technical Conference several times over the years, and I have to say, the number of people at RSA is just mind-boggling! If you have never attended the RSA conference, it is quite a sight to see! Here I found thousands of people, hundreds of vendors, and a large selection of security topics to participate in. It was quite exciting to see such a buzz around the topic of security. If RSA is any indication, 2010 will be a big year for security projects!

My second week of travels brought me back to San Francisco, CA to kick off my workshop tour. I started in Oakland, CA, traveled to Irvine, CA, and then to Las Vegas, NV. The goal of these workshops was to help people get started with their IBM i Security Policy.

Some of the things we discussed included:

• Why a security policy is so important in today’s environment
• What government regulations and standards are driving the security policy projects
• Components of your security policy, both from a corporate perspective and specific to IBM i
• Business requirements considerations for your security policy
• Who to include in your security policy review team
• How to audit your IBM i
• What reports are available to support your security policy and how they are executed
• How PowerTech can help – tools available to help assess your system and simplify reporting

I really enjoyed working with everyone who attended my workshop, and hope everyone learned something valuable that can be applied to their security policy – I know I learned something from each workshop!

If you are interested in attending a workshop on this topic watch our newsletter, PowerNews, or check the blog for more cities and dates. I will be continuing my workshop tour over the next few months. I hope to see you in the future!

Well, a lot has happened for me since last week. After returning from Portland on Wednesday, I quickly laundered my clothes and repacked my suitcase. Less than 24 hours later, I headed back to the Minneapolis airport, this time with my two teenage kids; Jodan 15, and Sydney 13. We boarded a non-stop flight to London’s Heathrow airport. At 33,000 feet, and a temperature of -70 degrees Fahrenheit, we all said a temporary goodbye to the United States coastline, and I said a permanent goodbye to my “30’s.” A big sign of advancing years was that I had completely forgotten about the event until my daughter reminded me with a “Happy Birthday, Dad!” as we passed midnight.

As many of you know, I was born and raised in the United Kingdom and came to the U.S. twenty years ago as a high school foreign exchange student. I fell in love with Iowa back then, and upon my return home I started planning how I could come back. I took a job as a trainee programmer, and found myself learning to write RPG code on an AS/400. Eighteen months later, I took the plunge and packed all my worldy possessions into several large suitcases and never looked back.

For a number of reasons, eleven years has slipped by since my last return. I am now retraining myself in the art of driving on the left,and steering on the right! I am also quickly (re)adopting the accent of my ancestors, and reaquainting myself with the mighty Fish ‘n’ Chip.

The business purpose for my traveling here this week is due to the growth that we are seeing in security conversations in Europe. After a successful year at PowerTech, our Help/Systems International division is looking at ways to expand their contribution to that success. I will be working with the sales team to identify ways to best service new customers, for example by leveraging our fantastic no-charge compliance assessment offering. The technical teams are going to be briefed on a number of pertinent security topics, as well as discuss some aspects of product and operating system security.

Wednesday afternoon (10am CST in Minneapolis) Jill Martin, PowerTech’s product manager, and myself will connect the 4,000 miles between the two Help/Systems offices via WebEx to host our weekly Webinar security session. On Thursday, I am excited to be hosting a security workshop in the vein of the ones that I have been holding across the U.S. during the last couple of months. This session is now bordering on being “sold out,” so if you are interested, go to www.powertech.com and register.

Finally, I am taking a couple of days off at the beginning of next week to enjoy a little time with my UK-based family, and to show my kids more of “the old country.” I will be back in Minneapolis later in the week.

Have a great week everyone!