Article
The Difference Between OCR and IDP
Thu, 06/23/2022
Compare optical character recognition (OCR) and intelligent document processing (IDP) to learn when to use each to make structured and unstructured data more usable.
Article
Three Essential Steps to Successful Performance Management
Tue, 08/24/2021
Performance management is often made to look cumbersome and complex, but we’ve distilled the process down to three essential steps.
Article
Adding Flexibility to IBM i Monitoring Without Compromising Availability
By Kurt Thomas on Tue, 06/01/2021
To cope with system issues, you want easy yet comprehensive solutions that handle your performance, messaging, and remote management needs, but what you really need are integrated solutions for universal control. See where Robot Monitor fits in.
Article
Best Automation Practices for Robot Console
By Tom Huntington on Mon, 05/17/2021
When you apply rules to system events, automation software like Robot Console works like the autopilot on a boat or plane—it steers the system through the night or the weekend while you rest.
Article
Performance Navigator vs. IBM PM400
By Randy Watson on Mon, 01/25/2021
This article presents a technical review of how Performance Navigator stacks up as a replacement for IBM Performance Management for Power Systems (PM400).
Article
Why Relying on Scripted Operations Can Be a Problem for Your Business
By Steve Brasen on Tue, 03/31/2020
Scripting provides a powerful platform to automate simple tasks, but overusing custom scripts is hazardous for your business.
Article
Mobile Dashboards for IBM i Monitoring
By Chuck Losinski on Wed, 08/07/2019
Robot Console leverages the power of Fortra' dashboards containing browser access! Mobile-friendly dashboards allow you to combine key message summary and resource status data into a single, intuitive view. Read on to learn more.
Article
Capacity Planning and the Culture of Proof
By Timothy Prickett Morgan on Fri, 05/31/2019
Capacity planning is one of the most important things that a company will do, and yet there are still many companies that do it on the back of the envelope. Read this article and learn how to do it right.
Article
Two-Way Message Response with Robot
By Chuck Losinski on Wed, 05/01/2019
You have the afternoon off—but not the responsibility of monitoring your system for issues. This includes responding to application and system messages as they occur on your production IBM i jobs. You don’t want to carry your laptop around just in case you need to VPN back to answer a message that is waiting on your month-end process. What option do you have?
Article
Interacting with Powertech SIEM Agent for IBM i
By Robin Tatam on Thu, 03/21/2019
Your organization has invested in a security information event manager, or SIEM, to receive and analyse security and event log information from a variety of servers. Now they want to also get this information from their IBM Power Systems server.
Article
Top 5 Capacity Planning Mistakes on IBM i
By Tom Huntington on Tue, 02/12/2019
When it comes to capacity planning for IBM i, skip the shortcuts. This article shares expert recommendations on how to avoid the most common capacity planning mistakes.
Article
If It Has Moving Parts, Someday It's Going to Fail.
Sat, 11/03/2018
Check out IBM's new READ INTENSIVE SSDs. This is a note to highlight some of the pros and cons - and dig a little deeper into one of the cons - of IBM's recently announced new class of solid state disk drives, "read intensive" (RI) SSDs. The new RI-SSD comes in one flavor, a 1.86 TB drive. The new concept to wrap your head around is that the drive will "wear out" if you write too much over the...
Article
How to Download an ODBC Driver
Wed, 07/25/2018
Performance Navigator® requires an ODBC connection to connect to your IBM i system, but it does not come with your PC’s operating system. IBM has a downloadable they’ve titled Access Client Solutions, which we recommend our customers use to get that ODBC connection.
Article
FAQs about Performance Navigator
Thu, 07/12/2018
Will this product hurt the performance of my IBM i®? You will not even notice that the product is working. The data gathering software is already part of the OS. I currently have a subscription to IBM's PM for Power service. How is Performance Navigator compared to PM? Glad you asked... Performance Navigator uses exactly the same input as PM for Power, Collection Services. Performance Navigator...
Article
The Many Ways Robot Supports SNMP
By Chuck Losinski on Fri, 02/23/2018
Many devices send status updates using SNMP or simple network management protocol. Make sure you’re getting the message. Read on to see how Robot supports SNMP.
Article
Message Received?
By Chuck Losinski on Fri, 02/23/2018
When was the last time you reviewed your Robot Console message automation? If you’re out of practice, let’s take a look at what you can do to maximize your message automation and reports.
Article
What Really Matters in IBM i Monitoring?
By Paul Ratchford on Thu, 09/14/2017
Guard against degraded system performance, data loss, and downtime. Make sure you’re monitoring these 15 metrics on the IBM i operating system.
Article
Application Monitoring and More in Robot Console 6
By Chuck Losinski on Fri, 02/24/2017
As more applications on IBM i become Java- or web-based, they’re less likely to send their important messages to a message queue. But don’t worry—Robot Console has that covered.
Article
Customer Spotlight: Heartland Financial USA, Inc.
By Chuck Losinski on Tue, 01/17/2017
The operations team was excited to share how Robot job scheduling and monitoring software has helped them manage their processing needs across platforms from their IBM i.