Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web

(IT Jungle) Do you compare the new System i 515 and 525 against other System i hardware or do you compare it to a Windows box alternative? The user-based pricing and the power/performance numbers look good in dim light, but in broad daylight what these machines lack becomes apparent. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Sometimes you only see things from one side. Turn it around and look from another angle and things change dramatically. In the developer community there has been some discussion about the possibility of an i5 515 developer workstation. A good idea, but perhaps a better idea would be to change a workstation into an i5. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Only IBM knows for sure, but the hunting dogs out in the field are barking like they are on the trail of Power6 and the new processors might be coming around as soon as June. Gathering advance information on an IBM new product release is not a precise science, but according to one source clock speeds on the first batch of processors, which might be available in four to six weeks, could reach 4.5 GHz. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Earlier this week the COMMON Conference in Anaheim, California, became the launching pad for a bundle of product announcements made by IBM and the invigorated independent software vendors (ISVs) in the System i community. It's good to know the creative juices are flowing and it's indicative of the ongoing efforts to bring innovation to the platform. READ MORE >

(I Jungle) Count yourself among a small number of Power5 tech heads if you've already been noodling this idea. Take the compiler tools that run on X86 Linux and run them in the PAVE (portable advanced virtualization emulator) environment for the purpose of emulating the Linux-X86 platform inside PAVE. Why? Because the compiled code will run on any Power-based machine. READ MORE >

(System iNetwork) The opening session of the COMMON Conference, now an annual event rather than twice annual, featured Mark Shearer, general manager of the System i, singing a melody of tunes found on the platform's latest album. Shearer's favorite songs include: the new entry-level boxes, the progress of the Academic Initiative program, the vertical industry application efforts, Voice Over Internet Protocol, PHP Web application language, and MySQL database access. READ MORE >

(Search400) A survey commissioned by SunGuard, a data replication and network recovery vendor in the System i community, indicates that information availability is a top priority for companies, but IT executives and business executives are not in complete agreement about how much money in IT budgets should be ear marked for this effort. READ MORE >

(CRN) Customer demand for open source applications led to the soon-to-be-completed MySQL-to-DB2 integration, the first such deal between MySQL and IBM hardware. It's about providing choices says Craig Johnson, IBM's System i product manager for PHP and MySQL. On the other hand, IBM is dropping support for its Java-based database known as Cloudscape, which was turned over to the open source community in 2004. READ MORE >

Vendor Announcements, Promotions, and Deals

(IT Jungle) What does a DB2/400 admin need to know about an open source database? That's a trick question because most System i shops don't need a database admin or a separate database server. However, by adding support for MySQL, and allowing DB2/400 to work as one of the database engines that plugs into MySQL, more applications become available and the System i can take on more workloads. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) The Web application development language PHP continues to make friends and influence people in the System i world. The top System i executives absolutely swoon over the capabilities this brings to the platform. At the ISV level, PHP is also making its presence known as a single-development avenue for writing applications that can run on i5/OS, Linux, Unix, and Windows servers. And, oh yeah, it can access multiple databases, including DB2/400 and MySQL, too. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) For most companies, forms management is about as unlikely as time travel. That is, it is theoretically possible, but under current conditions not too damn likely. Change the conditions, though, and new possibilities unfold. Moving from paper-based forms to electronic forms begins to change the conditions. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Tape drive and tape library comparisons are most commonly made along the lines of cartridge capacity, data transfer rates, scalability, and backward compatibility. There are various enterprise-level formats including DLT, SDLT, and AIT enterprise formats, but LTO (Linear Tape Open) is unquestionably the one that really kicks butt. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) If software developments beyond your control have put you in the Oracle camp--say, for instance, you were a J.D. Edwards or Siebel customer long before Oracle acquired those companies--you should be interested to know which third-party applications have been certified as compatible with Oracle apps. After all, the name of the game is integration, right? READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Extracting, transforming, and loading mountains of data from one relational database to another involves some heavy lifting. Often this load involves data from production DB2/400, DB2 UDB, SQL Server, Sybase, Oracle, or Teradata databases running on i5/OS, Windows, Unix, or Linux servers to a secondary database used for data warehousing, for real-time reporting or for keeping e-commerce Web apps synchronized with the production systems. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) When given a gift, the wise person says thank you without considering how much the gift is worth. The value is secondary to the gift itself. For those of you with i5 570 and 595 servers, IBM has a few pricing discounts relating to memory and core activation charges. These are significant savings, even when put into the context of some very expensive boxes. READ MORE >

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources

(Bytware) The Integrated File System is one of the most ignored parts of the system, yet it enables many of the most powerful and most used features on OS/400. Most people don't realize that even if they are not using their system as a Web server or a network file server, they should have concerns about the IFS because what you don't know could weaken the security of your system. This white paper is authored by security expert Carol Woodbury. READ MORE >

(Curl) The decision about Web application development strategies takes into consideration such things as development, maintenance, and infrastructure. It also takes into account application capabilities and quality. This white paper looks at these factors from the standpoint of a scripting language and development environment known as Curl. READ MORE >

(Power Tech) The data in this report originates from iSeries security assessments conducted during the past 12 months. It may open your eyes to risks that require attention in your own IT department. Confidential information may not be as protected as you think it is. READ MORE >

(Gartner) This study recommends that large COBOL application portfolios running on legacy platforms (such as IBM iSeries and mainframes) should be evaluated to determine whether the migration to a commodity-based platform can provide concrete benefits in terms of total cost of ownership. It also advises that large migration projects require significant investments, commitments from all involved parties, and time, and warns against these projects when these ingredients aren't available. READ MORE >

(IBM) Implementing Linux on System i comes with its own set of performance questions. This paper relies on customer experiences to provide best practices that are useful in determining factors that affect the overall performance of Linux-based workloads on the System i. It covers topics such as memory allocation, virtual SCSI adapters, adapter frame size, and virtual LANs. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

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

May 10 -- Maryland Heights, Missouri - Application modernization evangelist, Trevor Perry, will discuss his favorite topic 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 >

May 10 -- Milwaukee, Wisconsin - PHP on System i will be the highlighted topic during the Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association meeting, which begins at 4:30 p.m. and takes place at Klemmer's Banquet Center. This session will provide an update on the PHP Web application development program including products for i5/OS, MySQL, open source applications, and plans for 2007. Guest speaker is Craig Johnson, System i product manager for PHP. Johnson will also present a second session on infrastructure simplification at 7:30 p.m. LEARN MORE >

May 10 -- Kent, Washington - The Pacific Midrange Systems Association meeting features a session on business intelligence this month. The guest speaker is Mike Lawton, a BI expert with New Generation Software. Topics of discussion will include uses for business intelligence such as performance measurements, CRM and marketing, and human resource management. The meeting begins at 11:30 a.m., with lunch at noon, and the presentation starting at 1 p.m. Meetings are held at the CenterPoint Corporate Park. LEARN MORE >

May 11 -- Atlantic City, New Jersey - Food processors and distributors have an opportunity to learn about enterprise software that can help mange critical areas of the business such as inventory management and lot tracking, shelf life dates, multiple units of measure, broken-case units, conversions, catch-weight pricing, flexible contract pricing, and route management. The event is hosted by VAI and it features the vendor's ERP software, S2K Enterprise Solution for Food Processors and Distributors. The seminar will be held at the Trump Casino and Resort and is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. and end by 2 p.m. LEARN MORE >

May 16 -- Independence, Ohio - PHP on System i will be the highlighted topic during the Application Systems Users Group of Greater Cleveland meeting, which begins at 5:30 p.m. and takes place at Harry's Steakhouse. This session will provide an update on the PHP Web application development program including products for i5/OS, MySQL, open source applications, and plans for 2007. Guest speaker is Erwin Earley, an engineer in the IBM Rochester lab. He also heads the Open Source Technologies Center of Competency for System i within the System i Technology Center. LEARN MORE >

May 20-25 -- Orlando, Florida - IBM's Impact 2007 conference features WebSphere and service oriented architecture (SOA) as the stars. Hear the story from IBM, analysts, and companies that have implemented SOA. There will be 325 sessions and labs and three separate tracks are designed for business leaders, IT executives, and technical personnel. LEARN MORE >

May 20-25 -- Las Vegas, Nevada - This year's expanded Interop 2007 IT Conference puts its educational focus on interoperability. A partial list of session topics include: application delivery, collaboration, security, service oriented architecture, storage, unified communications, virtualization, and VoIP. More than 200 educational sessions will be offered. There will also be intensive full-day and two-day courses for CIOs, security executives, and networking management to name a few. The expo area features more than 400 exhibitors. Keynote speakers include Microsoft's Senior Vice President of Server and Tools Business, Bob Muglia; Nortel's President and CEO Zafirovski; and Cisco System's Chairman and CEO John Chambers. LEARN MORE >

May 21-23 -- Las Vegas, Nevada - RPG World, organized by the well-known RPG expert, Bob Cozzi, is billed as "training for the job you are doing today." Session topics include RPG IV subprocedures and APIs, service programs and binder sources, WDSc, DB2, SQL, XML, and AJAX . As a distinction between RPG World and other training and education options, Cozzi says this conference doesn't "doesn't preach the big-blue party-line when it comes to RPG." Cozzi will be one of the session presenters and will be joined by other experts such as Bob Tipton, Bradley V. Stone, Aaron Bartell, Greg Veal, Bruce Hoffman, and George Farr. For those seeking advanced development training, there will be a separate Professional Developers Conference on May 20. RPG World will be held at The Orleans Hotel. LEARN MORE >