Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web

(IT Jungle) Let's say you're driving from Gnaw Bone, Indiana, to Dime Box, Texas. According to Mapquest, you'll arrive after traveling 1070 miles and driving 17 hours. Missing the mark by a few counties or adding five hours to the trip would not be acceptable. But if you're talking about microprocessor roadmaps, you can pretty much throw timelines and features out the window. In a business where precision is critical, why are deadlines so infrequently adhered to? READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) An IT educational program should emphasize real world working conditions in a modern data center. That would include heterogeneous systems and multiple vendors. Where's that happening? Omaha, Nebraska--and worldwide if you tap into an online program. In the end students have a two-year degree and an advantage in the demanding job market. And, yes, the IBM i is right in the middle of this. READ MORE >

(The Register) IBM is claiming hefty gains in application performance from the use of solid-state disks (SSDs), which became available to the IBM i Power Systems servers last week. The performance gains are realized when SSDs are used to store highly accessed data and less frequently used data is moved off primary servers and storage. But the gain in I/O performance will come not come inexpensively. You have to decide whether more capacity and higher performance are worth the premium price. READ MORE >

(JD Edwards Advisor) The author of this blog is befuddled by the loyalty of AS/400 users running JD Edwards World software. He claims the technology is past its prime, that little is being done to upgrade the IBM i operating system, and users are averse to accepting change. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Enterprise resource planning is the core business software for just about any business that has outgrown the mom and pop category. Yet many companies shy away from ERP because of fears related to vendor lock-in or the onset of complexity creep. If you could keep it simple with out-of-the-box, open source ERP, would you give it a closer look? READ MORE >

(CIO) Companies searching for candidates with excellent project management skills report that the pursuit of these highly desired individuals is exhausting. Do you have what it takes to deliver IT projects on time, on budget, and with all the promised benefits? Here's what's needed. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to make sure all these bases are covered. What bases? Click the link and find out. READ MORE >

Vendor Announcements, Promotions, and Deals

(IT Jungle) As more companies turn to managed services to reduce or eliminate IT infrastructure, the service providers continue investing in ever larger data centers from which to base their hosted services. As you can imagine, the key to managed services is management. And the key to management, especially as the data center customer list grows, is systems management tools. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) IBM's Query/400 is to business intelligence as the Greyhound bus is to cross-country transportation--effective, but hopelessly behind the times. If your organization runs with demands that never sleep, it needs access to real time data to fuel business intelligence and data warehousing goals. And if IBM's DB2 Web Query is part of your plans, you'll want to follow up on this. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) When application modernization plans call for AJAX-style interfaces, consider a tool that translates RPG application output into JavaScript Object Notation, which is JavaScript's super-fast native formatting language. And I would be derelict if I didn't mention this avoids the whole Java and WebSphere swamp that many people dread. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) There is no known inoculation for the disease known as bad data creep. But that doesn't mean your ERP systems are defenseless. Your company may have an EDI environment with bad data running through its veins, but what are you going to do? You're a one- or two-person IT department and your back is up against the wall. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Calling all COBOL developers. If you are modernizing applications using Java and at least somewhat familiar with the Eclipse framework, this is worth a look. Exposing core applications and data to SOA, Web services, and other initiatives may not be as complex and time consuming as first thought. READ MORE >

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources

(S4i) The benefits associated with document automation and the functionality, flexibility, and security available to an organization implementing IBM System i-based electronic document management software is covered in this report that uses S4i's product to illustrate its points. READ MORE >

(IBM) PowerVM virtualization technology is a combination of hardware and software that supports and manages the virtual environments on POWER5- and POWER6-based systems. It is designed to aggregate and manage resources using a consolidated, logical view. This report highlights benefits such as energy cost reductions through server consolidation and infrastructure cost reduction based on the improve management of growth, complexity, and risk. READ MORE >

(IBM) Using Apache, MySQL, and PHP, IBM i has the open source middleware to run PHP applications and scripts that have been written to the MySQL database that is used on millions of Web sites. And PHP applications written to the MySQL database can have the data stored in the DB2 for i database. This approach provides management benefits because DB2 is integrated into IBM i and users already know how to manage, back up, and protect DB2 data. This IBM Redbook covers installing, configuring, and implementation the MySQL database for use with System i. READ MORE >

(FalconStor) The benefits of a virtual library, including the capabilities to accept more data streams than a physical library, run more jobs simultaneously, and also create as many tape libraries and drives as needed (up to 128 libraries and 1,024 drives) is covered in this report that also considers topics such as deploying to multiple backup targets. 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 28 -- Webinar - A technical overview of BCD's Nexus portal is featured in this online session that provides the step-by-step process of creating a portal while detailing the key features and offering tips for a successful implementation. The event begins at 12:30 p.m. EDT. LEARN MORE >

June 2 -- Dearborn, Michigan - The 2009 Michigan System i Technical Education Conference is a one-day event with more than 40 sessions and a vendor expo. Topics include PHP, SQL, RPG, Rational development, backup and recovery, and DB2 Web Query. A complete agenda and list of speakers is available online. The event will be held at the Ford Motor Company Conference and Event Center located at 1151 Village Road. LEARN MORE >

June 2 -- Webinar - Solutions from several IBM business partners that can benefit a DB2 Web Query project are featured in this online session. Focus topics include instant meta data, building a data warehouse, and a "business intelligence in a box" appliance. The session begins at 11 a.m. EDT. LEARN MORE >

June 4 -- Webinar - A live demo of BCD's report distribution software, Catapult, will include topics such as distributing reports as PDFs, splitting reports, and archiving them to the Web, as well as converting reports to spreadsheet format. This session begins at 12:30 p.m. EDT. LEARN MORE >

June 10 -- Webinar - Monitoring and controlling *ALLOBJ users will be discussed during this online session hosted by PowerTech System i security experts. This presentation examines the management of people who have absolute power on your system along with access to all your business data and includes information on regulatory compliance and best practices. It begins at 8 a.m. PDT. LEARN MORE >