Eddie Chaffin

Group Enterprise Architect – Power Systems & ERP at ABP Foods

A Journey to RCAC – with some unexpected benefits

In September 2019, I started on a journey to see if IBM Row and Column Access Control (RCAC) could help ABP to give external users some much needed, easy and open access to the data they needed (and were authorised to), whilst still maintaining control over access to general corporate data and preventing ‘Data Tourism’.  A visit to Rochester proved that not only could RCAC  be a unique and great way to achieve this but that it need not impinge on the main M3 ERP system from Infor; that maintains its own security.

On the journey, I realised that there were a whole host of tools that IBM provides free of charge on the IBM i that could really help, both in this task and in general.  Here’s what I found and what can help you day by day.