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Bug Busters Software Engineering announced today that Release 10.0 of their RSF and RSF-HA applications for the IBM i. will be generally available on May 1.

 

The base version of RSF provides an advanced Managed File Transfer layer for the IBM i.  RSF-HA is a complete High Availability and data replication solution for the IBM i platform, bringing users more power at less cost then the competition.  Release 10.0 updates both the base and HA versions of RSF.

Users covered by maintenance can download the update directly from Bug Busters' web site:

    http://www.bugbusters.net/rsf_manual/Chapters/INSTALL.htm#web

 

Release 10.0 delivers many new features including the following:

 Automatic Updates

 With this release, users can update their RSF software automatically.  A new Retrieve RSF Update (RTVRSFUPD) command lets administrators download RSF updates directly to their iSeries machine via the Internet,.  The user decides what action to take with available updates.  The *NOTIFY option lets you know what updates are available.  The *RTV option retrieves available updates for installation at a later time.  The *INSTALL option installs any available updates.

The RTVRSFUPD command can even be used from a central machine to download and install RSF updates to other IBM i machines in your network.  And, the update function can be scheduled to run automatically.

Powerful New Job Scheduling Tool

The system job scheduler is handy for scheduling jobs once a day or once a week, but what if you need to run a job every hour or every 15 minutes?  The new Submit Repeating Job (SBMRJOBRSF) command offers an elegant solution.  As with the IBM Submit Job (SBMJOB) command, SBMRJOBRSF lets users specify a command to run, a job description, and so on.  But they can also specify a repeat interval (in hours, minutes or seconds) and a window within which the job can run, or a window within which the job should not run.  After each run, the job is placed back on the job queue where it efficiently waits until it's time to run again.

The End Repeating Job (ENDRJOBRSF) command can be used to end one or more repeating jobs.  And, you can direct the ENDRJOBRSF command to end repeating jobs on other iSeries machines in your network.

The repeating job function has been used by RSF and RSF-HA for some time to manage internal RSF functions.  With the latest RSF release, this powerful function is now accessible directly by RSF users .

Additional Security

RSF is known for being highly secure.  On top of industry standard encryption support, you have always been able control which machines could contact yours based on the requesting machine's serial number or system name.  Now you can restrict which users on a remote machine can initiate a request to yours.  Requester directory entries determine the rights and options that apply when another machine contacts yours.  A new "User profile for server jobs" (TGTAUT) parameter has been added to requester entries, allowing you to control the authority under which RSF server jobs run on your machine. 

The default value causes all target jobs to run under profile RSFSRV, as before. 

The value *DFTAUT also runs target jobs under profile RSFSRV, but the connection is allowed to proceed only if RSFSRV on your machine has *USE authority to the profile of the requesting user--i.e., the profile of the user on the source machine that initiated the request. 

Values *RQSDFT, *RQSFAIL and *RQS allow the target job on your machine to run under the profile of the requesting user.  The difference between these values lies in whether RSFSRV must have *USE authority to the requesting user profile, and what to do if it doesn't:

  • *RQSDFT:  If the requester profile exists and the default server profile (RSFSRV) has *USE authority to it, jobs run under the requester profile.  Otherwise, they run under the default server profile.
  • *RQSFAIL:  If the requester profile exists and the default server profile has *USE authority to it, jobs run under the requester profile.  Otherwise, the request ends in error.
  • *RQS:  No authority to the requester profile is required.  If the requester profile exists, jobs run under the requester profile.  Otherwise, the request ends in error.

 

Faster, Better Role Swap

Role swaps are now faster, easier and more flexible.  Several internal improvements have sped up role swaps significantly.  Many swaps now complete in as little as 15 minutes.  New restart options for interrupted role swaps let you continue where the swap left off, or restart at the previous or next step. 

In addition, information that rarely changes is now abstracted from the model role swap scripts.  This makes it easier for users to update customized scripts when Bug Busters releases new, improved models.

More

 

  • Purge spooled files that are more than n days old.
  • Purge RSF log entries that are more than n days old.
  • New Retrieve RSF Defautls (RTVRSFDFT) command.
  • Set sync attributes for multiple libraries at once.
  • *OUTFILE support is now available when displaying sync attributes.
  • Faster detection of broken connections improves performance in many RSF functions.


For details about these and other enhancements included in RSF 10.0, please see:

 

http://www.bugbusters.net/rsf_new.htm.

 

Complete Solution

 

RSF 10.0 Base Version makes inter-system communication, file transfer and object distribution a snap.

  • Send and retrieve objects and spooled files securely.
  • Send email and text messages from any program or command line.  Attach objects and spooled files to email messages with ease.
  • Pass through to other machines securely and easily.
  • Send objects to many machines in the time it takes to send to just one.
  • Industry standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption supported.
  • Change the layout of a physical file while it's in use.



RSF-HA 10.0 includes all of the base version function and allows you to replicate everything on your system in real time:

  • 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...

Full high availability and role swap is supported.

 

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 10.0 can be downloaded from www.bugbusters.net

 

 

 

MC Press Online's staff of reporters and editors are trained professionals who share a background in journalism and have a passion for technology. Many have been in the IBM midrange industry for more than 20 years and have a keen sense of what's important to IBM i and Power Systems users. If you have a news tip, story idea, or press release, email it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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