Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web

(IT Jungle) Live migration is a virtualization technology currently available for AIX and Linux servers and soon to become available for the IBM i users. When combined with other virtualization technologies such as logical partitions, workload balancing, and storage area networks, it results in a higher degree of infrastructure flexibility and risk mitigation associated with running many critical applications on a single server. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) September 30, 2013, will be the last day software maintenance support services will be available for i5/OS V5R4 and its related systems programs. For shops that just can't let go, IBM has a fee-based extended service plan in mind. This might set a record for "Never Can Say Goodbye" farewell tours. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) While storage strategists debate the tape versus disk argument, and some persist with the out of whack notion that tape is dead, George Crump believes in a blended approach. That's his storage story and he's sticking to it. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Oracle is mad as a wet hen. Although the company was awarded damages amounting to $272 million, that apparently is chicken feed. By Oracle's estimation, SAP should be paying roughly one billion dollars more for its inappropriate behavior concerning intellectual property rights. So it's back to court they go. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) The world deserves more Paul Schliebens. As of last week, it lost the only one it had. Schlieben, the founder and CEO of SoftLanding Systems until it was sold in 2006, was tragically killed in an airplane crash not far from his Peterborough, New Hampshire, home. The man and the way he ran his company should be a business school graduate course. READ MORE >

(System iNetwork) Justin Porter is a one-man IT shop in a company that runs at a 24x7 pace during peak season. He's been able to remotely manage IT infrastructure with a laptop and a VPN connection, but he recently researched tablets and this article reveals what he learned and why he's more productive with tablet in hand. READ MORE >

(SmartBlog) Work smarter, not harder is easier said than done . . . unless you know a thing of two about improving the creating a culture of smart thinking. OK, let's think about that for a few minutes. You want a smarter staff? Here's some advice on how to make it happen. READ MORE >

Vendor Announcements, Promotions, and Deals

(IT Jungle) Living a green-screen life in a GUI world is sure to bring an application down. Your 5250 interface has looks that can kill. And that's not a good thing. But before it kills the system that remains strong and secure and very modern, take a look beneath the surface and make the right investment. When you consider application modernization, there's a lot to examine. You can start with this. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Mobile computing that makes use of enterprise applications is more experimental than mainstream, but the winds of change are surely blowing. Sales force automation is clearly in the lead, with business process management starting to make some advances. Bigger news featuring business critical applications running on smartphones and tablets will be coming soon. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Keeping our foot on the mobile application accelerator, let's take a look at a tablet used for viewing content management system documents. Perhaps you can imagine the benefits of document accessibility from any location that has a network connection. Let's take reviewing and approving invoices as an example. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) More mobile apps? Sure, why not? The smartphone becomes a salesperson's best friend when it provides real time customer information on the most recent orders, which orders are open, the availability of product, delivery times, and pricing information. As long as that information is what the customer wants to hear, everyone is happy. READ MORE >

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources

(Storage Switzerland) The challenge with flash-based solid state disk is that most products require specific conditions be in place in order to achieve maximum performance. The chief benefit is a substantial boost in storage I/O response times. This report discusses various conditions that directly impact performance. READ MORE >

(IBM) Support for solid state drives started with V5R4 and was enhanced in i 6.1 and i 7.1. Should you be taking a closer look at this technology? Yes, particularly if your applications are read-intensive. But given the expense of SSDs, a little more research would be prudent. Here's a good place to start that research. READ MORE >

(Micro Focus) This research paper highlights three major drivers of change that modernization can help address. The first is the need for increased business and IT agility. The second is the mandate to reduce the cost of IT. The third is the requirement to comply with new and increasing regulations expected to emerge over the next several years. READ MORE >

(New Generation Software) "BI on the IBM i: Finding Your Way" examines IBM's business intelligence strategy from the perspective of the IBM i user and discusses the capabilities, cost of implementation, licensing terms, and product support of Cognos, DB2 Web Query, and other potential query, reporting, and BI software. In addition, this report provides a comparison of DB2 Web Query to an alternative BI solution, NGS-IQ. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

See our full calendar of events at
http://www.itjungle.com/fhm/fhm-calendar.html

February 16 -- Webinar - Business analytics software is one of the most talked about areas in IT. Connecting people with information in an easy-to-use way and gaining more value form enterprise data leads to better business decisions. In this session, VAI S2K Analytics software is featured. The presentation begins at 2 p.m. EST. LEARN MORE >

February 20 -- Norwalk, Connecticut - At the Fairfield AS/400 Users Group monthly meeting this month guest speaker Walden Leverich explores the Web beginning with what initiates a request to the communications that occur between the browser and the Web server. His session topics include what happens when users complete a form, how cookies are passed, the inner workings of secure HTTPS, and what goes into writing stable, high performance Web applications. Leverich is president and CEO of a software development and consulting company. FASUG meetings are held at the Norwalk Inn, 99 East Avenue, and begin at 5 p.m. LEARN MORE >

February 21 -- Irving, Texas - Using RPG open access to extend applications is on the agenda during the monthly meeting of the Metro Midrange Systems Association, a user group for the Dallas and Fort Worth metro areas. Guest speaker Barbara Morris is the lead developer for the RPG compiler in the IBM Toronto Lab. Her presentation will include the basic concepts of RPG OA, how it can be used to modernize existing applications and how it can simplify writing new applications to work with new resources and devices. Morris will also show the various stages of development starting from a trivial one-liner that always returns the same result, to an open access "handler" that can be used to access data returned by the Web service. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. with dinner at 6 and Morris' presentation at 7. MMSA meetings are held at the Dallas - IBM Innovation Center located at 13800 Diplomat Drive. LEARN MORE >

February 21 -- Costa Mesa, California - Two presentations are featured at the regular monthly meeting of the OCEAN User Group. Beginning at 5:15 p.m., toolkits for PHP Web application development will be covered by PHP specialist Mike Pavlak of Zend Technologies. At 7:30, electronic data management gets the spotlight with Lori Johnston of S4i Systems leading the discussion. Dinner and networking is scheduled between the presentations. The meeting location is the IBM South Coast Office located at 600 Anton Boulevard. LEARN MORE >

February 21 -- Southfield, Michigan - Identifying the causes of stress and using several practical tools to avoid and manage it both on and off the job will be on the agenda at the regularly scheduled local user group meeting of the Southeast Michigan iSeries User Group. Guest speaker is stress management counselor Donna May. The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. and will be held at IBM Southfield offices located at 18000 West Nine Mile Road. LEARN MORE >

February 21 -- Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois - A discussion on HTML5 and CSS3 presented by Shay Howe will be featured during the monthly meeting of the OMNI User Group. This session will describe front-end Web application design from a form and functionality standpoint. The meeting begins at 5 p.m. with registration and networking, followed by dinner at 6, and the business meeting and presentation at 6:45. It will take place at Pompei, which is at 17W744 22nd Street. LEARN MORE >

February 21 -- Atlanta, Georgia - A discussion of IBM ILE and open source toolkits are on the agenda at the Atlanta Mid-range Computer Users monthly meeting. Throstur Gudmundsson, the AMCU vice president of education, will present his views about the merits of open Web technologies, and how they can help transform the ILE environment into the modern world. He will also demonstrate practical examples using some of the same Web technologies that IBM has chosen for Websphere Application Servers. But instead of using WebSphere, this method connects directly to ILE programs through the Apache Web Server that is included in the basic IBM i software licenses. This session will be presented twice: one at noon and the other at 6 p.m. Both sessions will take place at Brio Tuscan Grille located at 700 Ashwood Parkway. LEARN MORE >

February 22 -- Webinar - RPG Open Access is widely recognized as one of many application modernization technologies. But what is it exactly? This presentation by IBM and application tool vendor Profound Logic takes on some of the myths and misconceptions about RPG OA. The presentation begins at 10 a.m. PST. LEARN MORE >

February 22 -- Webinar - Planning a green screen to Web modernization project means having some well-defined goals. In this session, RPG expert Bob Cozzi discusses five key decisions that have a substantial impact on modernization success. Cozzi will emphasize defining the scope of the project along with determining a timeline, budget, and staffing. The session begins at 1 p.m. EST. LEARN MORE >

February 22 -- Webinar - Overcoming serious security issues involving standard FTP gets the attention in this online session that discusses alternatives to FTP that will protect data transfers with strong encryption and modern authentication methods. Topics include meeting privacy policies and compliance requirements like PCI DSS, SOX, and HIPAA; the advantages and differences between FTPS and SFTP secure protocols; authenticating servers using passwords, keys and certificates; and using Open PGP to encrypt files at rest and on the move. Recommendations and tips for implementation of Linoma Software will also be included. The presentation begins at noon CST. LEARN MORE >

February 22 -- Woodbury, New York - The Long Island Systems Users Group monthly meeting includes two presentations. The first is a session on mobile application development that covers the tools and skills required to develop a native application as well as techniques for incorporating remote data into the application, whether it is from an IBM i or another platform. David Weissman, a programmer and analyst, is the speaker. His presentation begins at 5 p.m. The second session dives into writing stable, high performance Web applications. It includes topics such as what happens when users complete an online form, how cookies are passed, and the inner workings of secure HTTPS. This session is presented by Walden Leverich, president and CEO of a software development and consulting company. Between the two sessions is dinner and networking time. LISUG meetings are held at the Fox Hollow Inn located at 7725 Jericho Turnpike. LEARN MORE >

February 23 -- Webinar - Managed file transfer (MFT) solutions that help AIX shops move beyond the many problems of scripting are the focus of this session hosted by Linoma Software. Topics of discussion include knowing when the AIX shell script fails, ensuring that files and passwords are secure, providing audit trails, and adhering to regulatory compliance mandates. The session begins at noon CST. LEARN MORE >

February 23 -- Webinar - Providing a sales team with real-time access to customer and product information, anytime and anywhere they need it is a priority IT agenda item for many companies. This session covers topics such as product catalog searches, checking price and availability, viewing related products, new products, and current promotions. Also covered are tracking quotes, customer orders, and reviewing a customer's order status. VAI S2K Sales Force software and S2K Enterprise software are featured in this event, which begins at 2 p.m. EST. LEARN MORE >

February 24 -- Las Vegas, Nevada - This free educational workshop on RPG application modernization relies on hands-on experience working with RPG applications running on an IBM i. It features Open Access RPG--which means all RPG programming logic and file I/O remains on the IBM i--and ASNA Wings, a tool for converting green screens into browser-based replacements. ASNA plans on taking this workshop on a tour of U.S. cities. It calls it the "No Stinkin' Screen Scrapers Here Tour" and promises more than a PowerPoint presentation with a donut and a cup of coffee. The session will cover the basics of IBM Rational Open Access, an introduction to Microsoft's Visual Studio, how to use Wings to import and create browser-based alternatives to your green-screen display files, and ways to enhance the user experience. The workshop is scheduled from 9:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. LEARN MORE >