Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web

(IT Jungle) Have you been wondering which crack the System i fell through after the Big Blue broom swept parts of it into the freshly minted Power Systems and Business Systems divisions? We all know the product still exists and that major upgrades--Power6 and V6R1--are soon to arrive. But what about the System i identity? Is it lost or just temporarily misplaced? And who's in charge? READ MORE >

(MCPress) In a world where most System i shops invest a larger share of their IT budgets on a combination of Windows, Unix, and other platforms than they do on the System i, IBM executives are working to make our favorite platform the centerpiece of a simplified the IT environment. Look for the "price to value proposition" to remain a reoccurring theme. READ MORE >

(System iNews) The top-down view of the System i customer base is that users are pleased with IBM's reorganization from a products team approach to more of a "client-oriented consultative approach." Feedback, at least after it goes through the IBM filter, has been positive. Getting a favorable report card from the most important IBM customer base is probably a good thing. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Gaps come in all sizes from cracks to chasms. The gap that exists between CPUs and memory subsystems is an easy one to fall into. When processor clock speed is cranked up, main memory has to keep up or systems will under perform. Keeping a balance is not that hard to do, until you throw in the cost of power consumption. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) By IDC's numbers, the so-called volume server space grew sales by 8.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, compared to a 5.7 percent decline in high-end boxes (which cost $250,000 or more) and a 0.5 percent decline in midrange boxes (which cost between $25,000 and $250,000). READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) You may not know about the availability of a rehosting environment for RPG and COBOL applications supported on Hewlett Packard servers running HP-UX, Windows, or Linux operating systems. .NET or Java application languages are used for the Web front end, and SQL Server or Oracle databases for the back end. You may even say you don't care. Nonetheless, there are companies choosing this path. READ MORE >

Vendor Announcements, Promotions, and Deals

(IT Jungle) Poor database performance can result from more problems than you can shake a stick at, and--particularly in data centers where high performance is demanded--shaking a stick isn't going to get you very far in solving those problems. That's where DB2 and SQL optimization software comes into play. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) You probably have them working in an office near you. Most are fairly docile, but lately there has been an increased number of incidents reported involving barking and biting. I'm talking about Excel-aholics. They live in a spreadsheet world and they feed on data from System i servers. It's best not to agitate them, so give them what they want and as much as they want. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Regulatory compliance issues are the burr under many IT cowboys' saddles. Many of the processes to gain compliance were quickly instituted under deadline pressure and are painfully labor intensive. Can it be automated at the database level with secure and auditable features? You bet. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) It's unknown whether the X-Force team dresses in black suits with white shirts and black ties. For the sake of visualization, let's say they do. What is known about X-Force is that the team releases an annual report on the state of information security and the trends identified are very interesting. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) If you know the value of presorting mail to qualify for bulk mail rates, you also know the importance of address-matching software and coding accuracy. A lot of money is saved (or lost) because of the quality of mailing lists. Are you on top of this in your mail room or with your service bureau? READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) The request is a familiar one: "I want to access RPG applications from a Web browser." The solutions vary. Here's an option that resulted in happy users who also got the bonus of interacting with the applications from Excel, Word, Outlook, and other components of Microsoft's Office suite. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Put this one in the category of why do things have to be so dang difficult. Printer environments are a mess. Any printer should support any host, including System i servers (and mainframes) that rely on the AFP and IPDS print architectures. Wouldn't that be a joy? Well, prepare to be delighted. Simplicity takes center stage. READ MORE >

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources

(IBM) Lotus Domino V8 performance comparisons with previous releases and across a variety of server platforms are detailed in this report. Scalability is a key feature for a mail server and this testing is done with thousands of simulated Lotus Notes users. READ MORE >

(COMMON) The online session guide for the upcoming COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition provides a quick and easy overview of topics that are of interest to System i professionals. Browsing these topic areas and brief session descriptions might give you some ideas for advancing your career or getting a work project off the back burner. READ MORE >

(IBM) All programs moving to i5/OS V6R1, which will be available in March, will need a degree of conversion to run. In order for a program to be converted, its creation data (sometimes referred to as observability) must be available for the system to make use of during a conversion process. Programs created for V5R1 or later have their creation data automatically saved during program creation. Those with programs created for OS/400 V4R5 and earlier need to ensure that the creation data is available for the conversion process. This technical paper provides a focus on what you should expect in terms of conversion processes. READ MORE >

(ARCAD) This white paper takes a view of service oriented architecture in the System i world as the route to system flexibility and open communications. It ties business change with software change and makes the case that software has often been a delaying factor in business changes required to support new products and services. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

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

March 7 -- Webcast - Converting spooled files to Excel spreadsheets is the topic of this 20-minute online session hosted by DRV Technologies. A demonstration of SpoolFlex--software created by DRV--is included. The event begins at 2 p.m. EST. LEARN MORE >

March 11-13 -- Orlando, Florida - The RPG and DB2 Summit features three days of in-depth education on topics critical to System i developers, including V6R1, RPG IV, ILE, SQL, DB2 for i5/OS, WDSc, XML, PHP and taking RPG applications to the Web. Sessions are presented by the System iDeveloper team of Susan Gantner, Jon Paris, Paul Tuohy and Skip Marchesani. They are joined by guest experts Scott Klement, George Farr, Barbara Morris, Kent Milligan, Mike Cain, and others. The agenda includes more than 50 interactive sessions focused on sharing practical tips and techniques that developers will use on a daily basis. LEARN MORE >

March 11 -- Webinar - A session on high performance data access methods focusing on DB2 for i5/OS will b presented by Dan Cruikshank, a senior consultant for the IBM Systems and Technology Lab Services group. Topics of discussion will include DDL-created objects, the SQE optimizer, journal and commit optimization, minimizing I/O, table expressions, fast count and fast delete, and blocked fetch and insert. Cruikshank is an IBM certified instructor for the DB2 for i5/OS Performance Tuning Workshops. This training session, which is sponsored by Centerfield Technology, begins at noon CST. LEARN MORE >

March 11 -- Orlando, Florida - Guest speaker Keith Zblewski, an IBM technical specialist, will be discussing a variety of advanced technologies available on System i. Topics include i5/OS running in BladeCenter, improved storage virtualization, new encryption capabilities, enhanced Java performance, enhanced performance with IBM storage area networks, a new approach to Web-based systems management, a major new disk clustering product, iSCSI-based integrated server enhancements, and steps for program conversion on V6R1. The Orlando campus of DeVry University is the event site, and dinner is scheduled for 6:15 p.m. with the presentation at 7. LEARN MORE >

March 11 -- Webinar - Conventional document archiving, management, and usage require multiple steps, even using traditional proprietary electronic document management solutions. This webinar explores how documents of all types--computer generated documents, scanned documents, reports, payments, and correspondence--can be automatically captured, indexed, and archived for easy authorized access, management and distribution using a browser-based interface. It also examines how a unique integration enables access to documents directly from line-of-business applications without leaving the application. LEARN MORE >

March 11 -- Beaverton, Oregon - A presentation on model-driven development and application generators will be the highlight of the regular monthly meeting of the Cascade iSeries User Group. Guest speaker Paul Conte will explain why IBM, Microsoft, and the independent software vendors view MDD as a major strategic direction for developing business applications (as well as other application types) more quickly and efficiently. The meeting will be held at the IBM offices, 15400 S.W. Koll Parkway between 1 and 3 p.m. LEARN MORE >

March 13 -- Webinar - A session on executive reporting and analysis in the healthcare field is being hosted by New Generation Software (NGS). It is designed for hospitals, clinics, and healthcare ISVs and features topics such as reducing report backlog, improving collections, raising accountability, and securely expanding data access to managers. NGS' Decision Assist Healthcare solution will be featured. The software benefits include a secure Web portal of ready-to-run patient, revenue, and clinical care reports and analysis built over a DB2 data mart with NGS' business intelligence application development tools. A fully integrated version for users of Siemens Medical Solutions MedSeries4 will also be shown. Sample healthcare dashboards and OLAP models, Microsoft Excel-based reports, and other output options will be presented. LEARN MORE >

March 13 -- Milwaukee, Wisconsin - PHP, MySQL, and Linux will each be highlighted in two sessions during the monthly meeting of the Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association. Guest speaker is Erwin Earley, a software engineer at the IBM Rochester Labs. A session featuring Linux and the System i will begin at 4:30 p.m. and a session featuring PHP and MySQL in i5/OS will begin at 7 p.m. In between is dinner and networking with the members. LEARN MORE >

March 13 -- Kent, Washington - The Pacific Midrange Systems Association meeting features a session on securing the System i server, presented by Robin Tatum, a trainer and security specialist with MSI Systems Integrators. Topics of discussion will include: security policy, system values, auditing, compliance, and much more. The meeting begins at 11:30 a.m. LEARN MORE >

March 13 -- Maryland Heights, Missouri - Pete Helgren, president of Value Added Software, will discuss open source applications and integration activities at the monthly meeting of the Gateway/400 Group, an iSeries user group serving the greater St. Louis area. The meeting time is 11:30 a.m. with lunch at noon and the presentation following lunch. RSVP no later than Monday before the meeting date. LEARN MORE >