IBM Sustainability Software - Ideas Portal
This portal is to open public enhancement requests against the products and services belonging to IBM Sustainability Software. To view all of your ideas submitted to IBM, create and manage groups of Ideas, or create an idea explicitly set to be either visible by all (public) or visible only to you and IBM (private), use the IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com).
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We invite you to shape the future of IBM, including product roadmaps, by submitting ideas that matter to you the most. Here's how it works:
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Start by searching and reviewing ideas and requests to enhance a product or service. Take a look at ideas others have posted, and add a comment, vote, or subscribe to updates on them if they matter to you. If you can't find what you are looking for,
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Follow the idea through the IBM Ideas process.
Specific links you will want to bookmark for future use
Welcome to the IBM Ideas Portal (https://www.ibm.com/ideas) - Use this site to find out additional information and details about the IBM Ideas process and statuses.
IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com) - Use this site to view all of your ideas, create new ideas for any IBM product, or search for ideas across all of IBM.
ideasibm@us.ibm.com - Use this email to suggest enhancements to the Ideas process or request help from IBM for submitting your Ideas.
"I don't really see what the need for this is. "
I don't know the full reasoning behind why IBM provided the feature but I have put some likely responses below.
"You have uploads in Maximo controlled by the file extension. "
This provides limited protection. Microsoft office documents are often a source of viruses using VBA, Microsoft office documents are one of the most popular attachment formats that I see being used.
"Then you can also have anti-virus installed on the server that would scan uploaded files in real-time (at least on Windows server). And you can also run period scans of files for malware/viruses."
If the anti-virus scanner finds an infection problem then Maximo probably isn't aware of the problem until someone tries to access the file. Anti-virus software often block access to an infected file when someone tries to access it, at that point Maximo will receive an error message e.g. unable to read/open file. That would lead to extra work for support/confusing messages to the users because the file is clearly there and should be accessible.
Maximo will still have the reference in the docinfo related tables even though the file is being blocked by the virus scanner.
Depending on how IBM have coded this, if an infection is found then the attachment would never get loaded in the first place and the user would be aware that they are trying to upload an infected document
"Seems like a redundant feature where products already exists to perform this."
IBM aren't providing the anti-virus scanner. The code passes the suspect file to an existing product e.g. McAffee
I don't really see what the need for this is. You have uploads in Maximo controlled by the file extension. Then you can also have anti-virus installed on the server that would scan uploaded files in real-time (at least on Windows server). And you can also run period scans of files for malware/viruses.
Seems like a redundant feature where products already exists to perform this.