IBM today announced that supermarket chain Raley’s expects to save $3 million over the next five years by standardizing its next generation applications on IBM’s e-infrastructure technology.

The company also migrated its data warehouse operations from an NCR Teradata system to IBM’s DB2 database.

The decision to implement IBM’s technology was based on Raley’s need to create a powerful, cost effective technological platform that could easily be enhanced for future e-business initiatives. The company also collaborated with IBM Global Services to migrate to DB2 to consolidate its data warehouse applications across 148 stores to monitor and track customer buying trends.

The decision to migrate to DB2 running on the IBM eServer zSeries platform was triggered when Raley’s original data warehouse reached full capacity, hindering its ability to manage and report insights on its point of sale data. Since implementing DB2 to power its data warehouse, Raley’s is changing merchandising efforts by providing more up-to-date, accurate reports enabling the supermarket’s decision makers to be better prepared when dealing with vendors and suppliers. Today, its DB2 data warehouse holds more than 500 gigabytes of raw data and provides daily, online updates to vital product and sales data that was previously distributed in weekly, hardcopy reports. The company expects to save an additional $200,000 per year in database administrator (DBA) salaries by training and leveraging DB2 skills across the enterprise.

“The reporting capabilities of the DB2 data warehouse running on the IBM eServer zSeries platform are so powerful that it is changing the way we merchandise, the way we buy and the way we interact with our vendors and suppliers. Now we can respond more quickly to market activity,” said Tom Jones, Chief Information Officer, Raley’s. “Implementing IBM’s infrastructure technology will become even more of an advantage as we evolve our e-business initiatives.”

Each day, customer buying data from Raley’s 148 stores is compiled, analyzed and published to IBM’s DB2 database. When product category analysts and buyers arrive each morning, they can immediately get a jumpstart on the day with timely views of product movements, can evaluate promotional activity and stock shelves accordingly based on regional buying patterns.

Raley’s data warehouse also relies on the IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server (code named “Shark”) and Tivoli Storage Manager for storage and disaster recovery of all its enterprise databases. The company also chose IBM’s WebSphere Application Server as its development tool based on its powerful user interface tool and version control capabilities.

IBM Eases Migration, Lays Foundation for Future

IBM Global Services (IGS), collaborating with the IBM DB2 Migration Team, guided Raley’s data warehouse migration, which was completed in just three months. IBM’s Teraplex Integration Center provided a proof of concept that brought together experts in hardware, software, and business intelligence to test Raley’s applications with real-life data. IGS will continue to provide consulting assistance to Raley’s for the project, which was funded by IBM Global Financing.

In the future, Raley’s plans to integrate PeopleSoft applications running on DB2 into its intranet and plans to incorporate ERP systems. The company also foresees making its data warehouse information available to select business partners who are interested in analyzing and applying sales data to refine their marketing programs.

About Raley’s

Headquartered in West Sacramento, CA, Raley’s owns 148 supermarkets across four chains –Raley’s, Food Source, Nob Hill and Bel Air Markets — and is ranked 20th largest US supermarket chain. The chain employs 17,000 and has revenues of $3 billion. Raley’s has 97 Superstores in Northern California, Nevada and New Mexico. Raley’s owns Bel Air Markets, a chain of 18 supermarkets in the greater Sacramento area; Food Source, a chain of 7 warehouse format stores; and Nob Hill Foods, a chain of 26 supermarkets in south San Jose, Central Coast, and greater Bay Area in Northern California.

About IBM’s DB2 Universal Database

As the foundation for e-business, DB2 Universal Database is the industry’s first multimedia, Web-ready relational database management system, strong enough to meet the demands of large corporations and flexible enough to serve medium-sized and small e-businesses. DB2 Universal Database combines integrated power for business intelligence, content management, enterprise information portals and e-business with industry-leading performance and reliability to drive the most demanding industry solutions. DB2 Universal Database together with Internet technology makes information easily accessible, available and secure. There are more than 60 million DB2 users from over 300,000 companies worldwide relying on IBM data management solutions. For more information, please visit www.software.ibm.com/data or www.ibm.com/bi.

Contact:
Peter Tulupman
IBM Software Group
Phone:(212) 745-3093
Fax: (212) 745-2034
email: tulupman@us.ibm.com

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation: The lead attorney for Dmitry Sklarov has just
advised us that the arraignment scheduled for Thursday
has been delayed until next week.

The Bunner court hearing will proceed as planned.

Turbolinux, the leading
provider
of Linux distributions for enterprise and Internet infrastructure,
today
announced the release of its z/Linux 6.5 for IBM zSeries servers.
Re-hosting enterprise middle-tier applications on z/Linux running under
z/VM
(Virtual Machine) combines the uptime of Linux with the unified
management,
monitoring and control inherent in z/VM that far exceeds any operating
environment found on distributed systems. Even the largest enterprises
can
exploit the superior reliability that results, while also reaping
tremendous
cost savings from consolidating from dozens of servers to one machine.

“Our customers increasingly demand flexible industrial-strength
infrastructures upon which to run their businesses – Turbolinux z/Linux
6.5
on IBM eServer zSeries computers provides all this and more,” said
Ly-Huong
Pham, CEO of Turbolinux. “Leveraging z/VM, the mainframe can be
partitioned
into hundreds of ‘virtual servers,’ each running an application
independently. Businesses can exploit an architecture designed for
high-availability to reduce costs without sacrificing server autonomy –
gaining an edge in a competitive marketplace.”

Mainframe Power And 24 x 7 Support
IBM and Turbolinux recognize that customers wanting to run Linux on the
mainframe need both VM and Linux skills. “We wanted to ease the
concerns of
Linux and z/VM administrators,” said Hervey Allen, systems engineer at
Turbolinux. “A company wanting to adopt Linux for its mainframe or,
conversely, wanting to consolidate client/servers onto an S/390 or
zSeries
machine, can rely on Turbolinux’s integrated VM and Linux support.
Through
a strategic partnership with Sytek Services, a premier VM consulting
firm,
Turbolinux is able to provide 24 x 7 support from a single point of
contact
and responsibility. And we offer more than just find/fix support –
including hands-on systems and performance assurance as well as update
and
application counseling.”

z/Linux includes much more than a Linux distribution. The Services
Delivery
Option (SDO) offers a custom z/Linux installation on VM distributed via
tape. Customers receive a fully-loaded tape that is easily copied to
their
own z/VM environment for immediate use. This instant deployment means
that
Linux administrators need not learn VM and that VM systems programmers
are
not forced to learn Linux to get the z/Linux environment functioning
quickly. In addition, Turbolinux will provide full support and the SDO
to
S/390 users who have installed different Linux distributions, such as
SuSE.

Simple, Complete, Manageable and Production-Ready
With a unified console for all administrative tasks, systems
administrators
are able to deploy, monitor, and manage all Linux images from a single
screen. Configuring and deploying each completely new Linux
environment to
run under VM requires a few simple commands, taking a few minutes to
create,
allowing administrators to create new servers on-demand and deploy on
the
fly without the need to purchase and configure new hardware.
z/Linux running under z/VM reduces the skills and time required for
tuning,
because any of the resources allocated to a virtual machine, like CPU
cycles, can be changed on the fly. Plus, the huge headache of software
distribution and versioning is solved. Only one copy of each
application is
required, supporting 100 or more ‘virtual servers’.

VM is a production-ready operating system, having been available for
over 30
years. Customers can confidently host Linux applications knowing that
it is
a safe and secure environment.

Economies of Scale
The total cost of ownership for a traditional server farm with 3500 –
7500
discrete systems is approximately $1500 per square foot, per month and
requires 20,000 square feet in order to house all the equipment. But,
a
server farm running z/Linux on an S/390 can house up to thousands of
systems
in just 400 square feet. Compared to a distributed solution, the
initial
investment can be as little as one-tenth, with ongoing costs as little
as
one-third.

Applications Available Today
There is a wealth of applications available for the S/390 mainframe and
most
customers will find that all their current middle tier applications can
be
re-hosted to Linux with minimal effort.

About Turbolinux, Inc.
Founded in 1992, Turbolinux develops Linux-based software solutions for
Internet and enterprise computing infrastructure, including reliable,
available and scalable operating systems for workstations and servers
and
software clustering solutions for computing traffic management and
peer-to-peer distributed computing. Backed by more than $95 million in
investments from some of the world’s leading technology companies,
including
Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell, Oracle, SGI
and
Toshiba, Turbolinux is headquartered near San Francisco with offices
around
the world. For more information, visit the Turbolinux Web site at
http://www.turbolinux.com.

Turbolinux is a registered trademark of Turbolinux, Inc. Linux is a
registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other registered trademarks
belong to their respective holders.

Kim Kent, Brodeur for IBM writes: “Supporting the momentum of customers migrating to DB2, IBM is extending its DB2Now! program to enable the migration of existing Teradata customers to an IBM DB2 Data Warehouse.”

By migrating to DB2, businesses can take advantage of DB2’s broad platform support, advanced business intelligence functionality and superior price points. Data warehouses function as central collection points for information on a company’s customers, products and all the transactions in between. They combine server and storage hardware, database software and incorporate analysis tools enabling a company to have a single, consistent source for all information required for the foundation of business intelligence purposes. These results offer what has come to be known as business intelligence, revealing hidden clues on what products and services to sell, to whom, how, and when.

According to the e-Business Analytics report by Merrill Lynch, the worldwide market opportunity analytics software is expected to grow to $25 billion by 2004, growing at a compound annual rate of 31 percent.

The DB2Now! program is designed for customers that are looking to ease development, management and cost challenges associated with competitive databases. The DB2 Now! Teradata conversion program provides customers with a free two-day migration study which gives a functionality comparison, an overview of the migration process and a savings estimate.

DB2Now! helps customers quickly move from competitive databases to DB2 with product enhancements, tools, promotions and skills. Since 1993, IBM’s specialized migration team has been helping companies migrate from competitive offerings to the industry’s leading database. Approximately 100 customers per-month have migrated to DB2 from competitive platforms over the past three months. Most recently, Rusch International, the Toronto Police Department and Zantaz have adopted DB2 from competitive platforms.

Technology advantages of DB2 compared to NCR Teradata include:

Broad Platform Support: DB2 runs on 22 platforms. NCR Teradata MPP runs only on proprietary NCR hardware and software.

Open Standards: DB2 supports a wide range of open standards including XML, UDDI, SOAP and Predictive Modeling Markup Language (PMML). PMML based data mining models allow companies to deploy real-time scoring of customers. Teradata customers cannot leverage vendor-developed or custom PMML-based models.

Leverage Existing Information: DB2 ships with DataJoiner to make other databases, such as Oracle, Sybase and approximately 30 other data sources look and behave like DB2. This allows customers to easily integrate heterogeneous data sources into a single application. NCR Teradata does not have this capability.

Technology Advantages: DB2 has more technical capabilities. These include spatial analysis, to visually map customer activities and replication which enables a user to have the most updated data, in the correct format when its needed. NCR Teradata does not provide these capabilities.

Proof of Concept: IBM has four Teraplex Integration Centers to demonstrate proof-of-concept to customers and IBM business partners, and serve as a ‘dress rehearsal’ for the Business Intelligence solution before it goes live at the customer location. As IBM proposes the most advanced BI solutions to all kinds of businesses and organizations across the world, the Teraplex Centers use real customer data to prove the solutions will work. NCR Teradata does not provide this benefit.

About IBM’s DB2 Universal Database

As the foundation for e-business, DB2 Universal Database is the industry’s first multimedia, Web-ready relational database management system, strong enough to meet the demands of large corporations and flexible enough to serve medium-sized and small e-businesses. DB2 Universal Database combines integrated power for business intelligence, content management, enterprise information portals and e-business with industry-leading performance and reliability to drive the most demanding industry solutions. DB2 Universal Database together with Internet technology makes information easily accessible, available and secure. There are more than 60 million DB2 users from over 300,000 companies worldwide relying on IBM data management solutions. For more information, please visit www.software.ibm.com/data or www.ibm.com/bi. For more details on the DB2Now! migration program, visit http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2/migration/.

Contact:
Peter Tulupman
IBM Software Group
Phone:(212) 745-3093

Fax: (212) 745-2034
email: tulupman@us.ibm.com
“

CNET: “AOL announced Tuesday that it is cutting 1,200 jobs and taking a charge of up to $125 million as
part of a significant reorganization. In addition, AOL said it is eliminating 500 positions at iPlanet.

After the layoffs, iPlanet will largely be a Sun satellite. As of last July, only one-third of iPlanet’s
approximately 3,000 employees were from AOL, Sun Chief Financial Officer Mike Lehman said.
Lehman has further said that Sun largely owns iPlanet’s intellectual property.”

Anonymous Reader writes: “Great Bridge WebSuite, featuring the PostgreSQL database, PHP scripting language and Apache Web server, packs power of open source in complete, cost-effective package.”

NORFOLK, Va., August 20, 2001 – Great Bridge LLC, the leading provider of solutions based on the PostgreSQL open source database, today announced the release of Great Bridge WebSuite, an integrated open source platform for building high-performance Web-based applications. Great Bridge WebSuite integrates the enterprise-class Great Bridge PostgreSQL database with the popular PHP scripting language and market-leading Apache Web server to shorten application development cycles and accelerate time to market.

Great Bridge has packaged the WebSuite release with a graphical installer, leading administration tools, professional documentation and an installation and configuration support package to help application developers quickly and easily deploy the power of PostgreSQL for demanding business processes.

?We?ve seen tremendous interest in the open source environment from businesses. We want to fuel that interest by providing a ready platform for rapid development and deployment cycles of large-scale, database-driven Web applications,? said Robert Gilbert, Great Bridge?s president and chief executive officer. ?WebSuite integrates the best open source technologies for the Web into a single release to shorten development cycles and speed time to revenue.?

Great Bridge WebSuite includes:

· Great Bridge PostgreSQL 7.1.2, the world?s most advanced open source database;
· Apache 1.3.19, the industry leading Web server;
· PHP 4.0.4, a server-side scripting language for creating dynamic web pages;
· Apache modules, including PHP, Perl, Python, Tcl, and Java;
· XML modules, including Cocoon, Xerces, and SOAP;
· Bandwidth management and security authentication modules;
· Administration tools suite featuring Webmin, PgAccess, and phpPgAdmin;
· Bluefish, an advanced HTML editor for web designers and programmers;
· GreatBridge.org, a web-based project management tool.

Great Bridge WebSuite features automated installation and full support to get developers up and running quickly. The software?s industry-standard protocols and open architecture offer seamless porting and platform-agnostic integration and connectivity. Great Bridge WebSuite will let businesses of any size create applications that will grow to accommodate more users and data without requiring the company to migrate its system to a larger, more expensive solution. Great Bridge WebSuite is available without the burden of software license fees, which lowers total cost of ownership and makes additional resources available for application development.

Pricing and availability

Great Bridge WebSuite is priced at $2,495 and includes the software, documentation, 30 days? installation support and a year of software updates. The package is available for the Linux platform immediately. A Sun Solaris version will be available within several weeks. Great Bridge offers additional support and services including 24×7 production support, hands-on implementation and development consulting, and comprehensive training programs. All products are available directly from Great Bridge at 1-866-POSTGRES and on the Web at www.greatbridge.com/shop.

About Great Bridge

Great Bridge LLC provides open source solutions powered by PostgreSQL, the world?s most advanced open source database. Great Bridge delivers value-added open source software and support services based on PostgreSQL, empowering e-business builders with an enterprise-class database and tools at a fraction of the cost of closed, proprietary alternatives. Headquartered in Norfolk, VA, Great Bridge is a privately held company funded by Landmark Communications, Inc., the media company that also owns The Weather Channel, weather.com, and national and international interests in newspapers, broadcasting, electronic publishing and interactive media.”

NetworkWorldFusion: “Vendors touting high-end application server technology have led companies to dramatically and unnecessarily overspend, according to a report released Tuesday by technology researcher Gartner.”

CNET: ” The Blue Gene supercomputers would run on chips that contain so-called cells, or processors
with both memory and communications circuits. The ASCI White supercomputer uses off-the-shelf
processors with a souped-up version of IBM’s commercial operating system.

While Blue Gene is aimed at scientific applications, David McQueeney, vice president of
Emerging Business for IBM Research, said that the technology will eventually trickle down to the
business community.

With time, McQueeney said, those intensely powerful computers will become affordable to small
and medium-sized businesses.”

– by Robin “Roblimo” Miller –

NewsForge, like all decent Web sites, gets updated periodically. We’re getting ready to do our next update, and would like to hear your ideas on what changes we should make. You can either post your suggestions here or email them to editors@newsforge.com. Should we have more reviews? Should we expand more into book and software reviews, areas we have almost avoided up to now?

Are we placing too much emphasis on outside links and not enough on original reporting? Or is it the other way around?

Are there areas we’re covering too heavily for your taste? Areas to which we should be paying more attention?

Do you like the comics? Not like them?

Any other thoughts, comments or suggestions on content? We’d love to hear them, whether they’re positive or negative.

Site design

Our design is far from perfect. How can we make it better? (No, we can’t remove the ads unless you’re willing to pay for the site out of your pocket.) What about the way we show older NewsForge Reports (original stories) and links? Do you think we’re doing this properly or do you have ideas on how we can do it better?

How about polls? We avoided them at first because everyone seems to have a poll these days, and we worried about following the crowd. Should we think about adding polls now?

What about comments? How should we handle them? Attached to each linked-to story? We really don’t get all that many comments except on a few high-profile reports right now. Should we encourage more comments? If so, how? (When we started the site, our thought was that Slashdot was getting enough comments for a dozen sites, and while NewsForge may be Slashdot’s relative, we certainly didn’t want it to be an identical twin — now, however, we have our own identity.)

We don’t know everything

This may come as a surprise, but NewsForge editors are not omniscient. We really do want your input, and promise to consider every rational suggestion carefully, and implement as many of your suggestions as we can when we start working on the site update, probably in September.

Thanks in advance for your help,

– Robin “Roblimo” Miller
NewsForge (and OSDN) Editor in Chief

CNET: “HP Secure OS Software for Linux, which will be announced Wednesday, will cost about $3,000,
said Roberto Medrano, general manager of HP’s Internet Security division. It includes a version
2.4 of Linux with open-source HP enhancements, higher-level software such as Apache Web
server, and utilities that tightly control communications between programs and detect attacks.”