Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web

(IT Jungle) IBM, a.k.a. Big Blue, has raised the curtain (presumably blue) on an application and systems strategy, code-named the "Blue Business Platform." Although rich with blueness, the program seems somewhat pale in details. It appears to be an application-centric sales model borrowed from the original AS/400 that has been modernized to support local and remote computing. Hello, SMB. Look what Blue can do for you. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) The 10,000 customers of application integration software company NetManage will soon be calling on Micro Focus for technical support and answers about product delivery. Micro Focus is a player in the mainframe application modernization field and if its $73.3 million offer to purchase NetManage is approved, it will gain entry into the OS/400 and i5/OS (now i OS) market. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) When people get lost in the wilderness, it's time to call out the bloodhounds. Sometimes IBM is the wilderness and people looking for information can be lost for weeks while trying to find needed information. The details on all the new Power6-based servers are a great example. Save the missteps and the disorientation for your summer vacation in the Great North Woods. What you need is a Power6 Systems bloodhound. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) For members of the AS/400 community with experience that predates and postdates the AS/400 name (and there are many of them among the legendary group of loyal customers), there is much to like about the platform no matter what nameplate is affixed to the box. There is also much displeasure in the way the IBM has painted the AS/400 into a corner. Here's what one old pro would like to hear from IBM. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) The "unification" (IBM's adjective of preference) of Systems i and p into Power Systems might lead customers to believe equal treatment. In fact, much has been made of how System i users will benefit from such equalization. So when discounts on Power5 and Power5+ cores are given to System p users, where's the equivalent deal for the i guys? READ MORE >

(MCPress) IBM did a great job building a partner ecosystem around the AS/400, but that was 20 years ago. Now it hopes to recreate that success with other platforms. IBM is calling this initiative Blue business. Its focus will be platforms that run across multiple hardware environments and operating systems. On the drawing board, this would allow customers to deploy applications that are part of a Blue Business catalog regardless of the server it runs on. READ MORE >

(MCPress) Business partners are the oxygen that keeps companies breathing. So last week when IBM hosted its Business Partner Leadership Conference (an upgrade from the PartnerWorld name, don't you think?), it put on a dog and pony show that let its partners know what it's been working on and what its ideas for the future are. Overviews of several initiatives were provided and areas of concentration included the small to mid size market and energy management. READ MORE >

(System iNetwork) COMMON Europe has posted a survey on its Web site and invited all users of IBM midrange computers to participate. Its purpose is to determine the concerns of the user community and provide IBM with some evidence of what really matters to its customers. This is the first time COMMON Europe has invited worldwide participation, so here's your chance to think and speak globally. READ MORE >

Vendor Announcements, Promotions, and Deals

(IT Jungle) How important is managing your resources? If you're in the desert and water is your most vital resource, water management is pretty important. If you're in a data center and electricity, network capacity, and space are your finite resources, you might want to manage them wisely and know when you are putting yourself in danger. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) At the top end of the i-based Power Systems growth chart are companies running the big servers, multiple systems, and using logical partitioning like they were slicing off pieces of cake. They may be playing the same game as other IT department professionals, but it's a much bigger ballpark. And when it comes to security, they have issues that are unique and demanding. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) The skills for creating modern Web applications aren't found in a box of Cracker Jacks. Making the leap from green-screen developer to Web guru is going to be easier for some than others. What have you got and what can you do with it? Your app dev vendor (not always IBM) has a lot to do with it. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) You might not expect anything to bug Terminix. I mean, it's their business to keep you from being bugged. What could possibly bug them? Integrating several billing systems and designing document workflows could really bug a lot of folks, but in this case Terminix swatted the problem away like it was a fly. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Most disaster recovery plans have secondary systems located off-site from the primary system. But what some small to mid size companies need is remote hosting, a deal that allows another company to staff and support the backup box. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Bill Zeitler, a former head of IBM's AS/400 division, has announced his retirement. At the end of his career, he was senior vice president and group executive of IBM Systems and Technology Group. Joining him in retirement is Nick Donofrio, vice president of innovation and technology and the one-time boss of the mainframe division. READ MORE >

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources

(Aldon) This recently released white paper on compliance provides best practices, compliance information and advice, while outlining how to use regulatory requirements as an opportunity to integrate business and IT. "Making Compliance Work for You with Application Lifecycle Management" demonstrates how ALM focuses on development organizations and also presents business benefits achieved through business efficiency. READ MORE >

(IBM) Cross-site mirroring--the replication of data at multiple sites in order to provide high availability and disaster recovery--is the topic of this technical paper. Topics of consideration include panning and installation, clustering, independent auxiliary storage pools, site object tracking, operations and performance considerations, and troubleshooting. READ MORE >

(IBM) Application development is witnessing an expanding role for APIs, and not just for the most highly skilled developers. This report, written by noted RPG experts Susan Gantner, Jon Paris, Paul Tuohy, and Gary Mullen-Schultz explains how to find and use APIs and how to interpret API documentation. READ MORE >

(IBM) This report provides an overview of the traditional OPM style methods of implementing exception/error handling and how they change in the ILE environment. It also discusses to use "pure" ILE methods to replace some of the more traditional RPG methods. 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 8 -- Maryland Heights, Missouri - Mike Pavlak, Director of Information Services at Chicago-based power supply manufacturer Tripp-Lite, will discuss PHP on the System i at the monthly meeting of the Gateway/400 Group, an iSeries user group serving the greater St. Louis area. Pavlak has been using PHP on Linux for more than three years to do project management software, intranet and extranet interfaces, IT helpdesk, and documentation management tools. He uses all open source applications from the PHP community. 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 8 -- Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Aaron Bartell of Krengel Technology will be presenting two sessions at the monthly meeting of the Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association. The first session, scheduled for 4:30 p.m. will provide tips and techniques to increase productivity when using WDSc. The second session, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. will cover three open source tools that utilize Java from the RPG environment. In between sessions there will time for networking and dinner. LEARN MORE >

May 15 -- Nanticoke, Pennsylvania - An overview of the IBM announcements on V6R1 and the Power6 hardware will be presented by Brian Kelly at the Northeastern Pennsylvania Computer Users Group meeting. The event begins at 10:30 a.m. at the Luzerne County Community College located at 1333 South Prospect Street. LEARN MORE >

May 17-21 -- Barcelona, Spain - The COMMON Europe Congress annual conference agenda includes general topic areas such as System i security, database management/performance, i5/OS V6R1 (now called i 6.1) systems management, system modernization, PHP/MySQL, application development, and Linux. In addition to lecture-style presentations, there will be hands-on lab sessions, a Spanish language technical stream, and a product showcase. There will also be keynote addresses by IBM executives, and the COMMON Europe Top Concerns discussion session. A detailed agenda can be found online. LEARN MORE >

May 20 & 21 -- Barcelona, Spain - The RPG & DB2 Summit, a development training event that has steady grown in popularity in the United States, will be held in conjunction with the COMMON Europe Congress annual conference. The Summit focuses on the latest tips and techniques related to RPG IV, ILE, SQL, PHP, XML and other application development technologies pertinent to IBM's i platform. The agenda also features sessions on V6R1 details, such as new RPG enhancements and how to prepare for the move to V6R1, including the process to follow for program object conversions. Registration can be separate for the COMMON Europe conference or the two events can be packaged as one. LEARN MORE >

May 20 -- Woodbury, New York - The Long Island Systems Users Group is presenting its annual Education Day event featuring seven sessions and a vendor expo. Session topics include SQL, backup and recovery, and SharePoint and the System i. Keynote speaker is Barbara Viola, President of the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP), Long Island Chapter. Session presenters include SQL expert Skip Marchesani and IBM's i5/OS backup and recovery expert Debbie Saugen. The event is scheduled from 1 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. It will be held at the Fox Hollow Inn. LEARN MORE >

May 20 -- Orlando, Florida - Guest speaker Jeff Elmore will be talking about the new generation of Power Systems at the Central Florida Midrange Users Group meeting. The presentation will cover energy efficiency, ease of deployment, Express servers, blade servers, and the new operating system i 6.1. Fiserv at Lake Mary located at 600 Colonial Center Parkway is the event site, and it begins at 6:15 p.m. RSVP is required. LEARN MORE >

May 20 -- Beaverton, Oregon - A presentation on the IBM Rational Developer for System i will be the highlight of a meeting co-hosted by the Cascade iSeries User Group and the Pacific Midrange local user group. Guest speaker IBM's Nazmin Haji will explain the components of IBM Rational Developer for System i (RDi), IBM Rational Developer for System i for SOA Construction (RDi SOA) and Host Access Transformation Services (HATS). The session also includes an introduction of Enterprise Generation Language (EGL). This is an all-day session from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. The meeting will be held at the IBM offices, 15400 S.W. Koll Parkway. LEARN MORE >

May 20 -- Atlanta, Georgia - The IBM Power Equation Road Show examines the Power architecture technology with an emphasis on how higher levels of performance, capacity, and resilience can bring benefits to i5/OS, UNIX, and Linux systems. Topics of discussion include: virtualization, scalability with a choice of database servers, shared IT infrastructure, reducing energy and administration costs through consolidated workloads, increased application availability, and business resiliency. This event begins at 8:30 a.m. at the IBM offices located at 4111 Northside Parkway. LEARN MORE >

May 21 -- Webinar - Seven things you should know about DB2 Web Query for System i will be discussed during this session presented by DB2 experts Mark Holm of Centerfield Technology and Gene Cobb of IBM. Installation, licensing, metadata definition, and Query/400 import versus using SQL will be covered, as well as Web Query add-on features. This event begins at 10 a.m. CDT. LEARN MORE >

May 21 -- Webinar - Automated software testing that's integrated into the application development process is the topic of this one-hour session presented by Ray Bernardi, solutions architect at ARCAD Software. Software testing implemented in a realistic timeframe will be a focal point, and topics of discussion will include how integrated analysis, change management, and testing tools can improve efficiency and meet the requirements of compliance auditors. The session begins at 1 p.m. EDT. LEARN MORE >

May 21 -- Cambridge, Massachusetts - The Fifth Annual MIT Sloan CIO Symposium features cutting-edge sessions addressing the changing roles of CIOs, CTOs, and senior IT executives. It combines academic insights on IT trends with CIO best practice recommendations. Keynote speaker is Ronald A. Williams, Chief Executive Officer of Aetna. Session speakers will include nearly 50 senior executives and professors from organizations such as Rolls Royce, Alcatel-Lucent, Marriott International, Massachusetts General Hospital, Bank of America, Forbes.com, IDC, Adobe, Special Olympics International, MIT, and Harvard Business School. The program will also feature CIO and Academic Keynote Panels. In addition, there will be a luncheon to honor winners of the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium 2008 Award for IT Innovation. LEARN MORE >

June 1 & 2 -- Nashville, Tennessee - The Information Builders 2008 Summit has a two-day track specifically for System i end users and ISVs interested in DB2 Web Query and its business intelligence capabilities. The session topics include creating and executing reports from DB2, step-by-step processes for embedding Web Query reports and graphs into Web sites, portals, and other Web-based applications. For registration and additional information, contact at Kathy_Drago@informationbuilders.com or by calling 800-969-4636. The entire conference stretches over five days and includes in-depth information and training for Information Builders products such as WebFOCUS, FOCUS, and iWay Software. LEARN MORE >