Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web

(IT Jungle) For a long time, most conversations about solid state disk drives had as much to do with how expensive they were as with what they accomplished. Now that flash-based SSDs have arrived, the price barrier will, no doubt, be lowered (not just yet, however), but that doesn't eliminate the need to figure workloads in order to determine the correct configurations. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Now that IDC has described the most recently completed quarter as the worst for server sales since it began tracking the market, there's only one place to go and that's up, right? I mean, there's no need to eat a live toad every morning just so nothing worse will happen the rest of the day. This is as bad as it gets, right? The server sales watchers say it is. IDC is predicting improving sales during the second half of 2009. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) COBOL is the Rodney Dangerfield of application development languages. It gets no respect. But those who quickly dismiss COBOL as being irrelevant are overlooking the huge (yes, huge) role it plays in the IT industry and in many of the world's largest companies. Why, COBOL-oholics ask, don't we get at least a tip of the cap? Like Dangerfield used to say, "It's not easy being me." READ MORE >

(JD Edwards Advisor) Is it time for "many" JD Edwards World customers "to embrace the changes that have occurred and make plans to move on" or does it make sense for "many" of those customers to continue using World on IBM Power Servers "until after the polar ice is gone"? Apparently it's both. Last week Four Hundred Monitor pointed to the first opinion article on this topic and this week it's worth checking in on the follow up. It seems like more should stay on World and the AS/400 than those who should move on. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Innovation is a competitive advantage whether it is applied company-wide, within the IT department, or at the individual employee level. Adapting to change is the key, particularly in the IT area as it is center of business development moving forward. The process of innovation can be learned, it doesn't just happen to those who are standing in the right place at the right time. READ MORE >

(Harvard Business Review) More on the importance of innovation . . . Business leaders want IT to create new possibilities and drive the business. Major investments have already been made in IT and they can be leveraged to change the way work is done--not by using the traditional approaches of scraping and rebuilding or throwing money and changes at problems, hoping for a fix. Tap into the "lead users" in an organization to find innovation. READ MORE >

(Business Week) For IBM to be opposed to business-method patents seems a bit odd in light of Big Blue's annual consumption of patents, some of which fall into the business-method category. Should you be able to gain patent protection on something like how to manage an organization or conduct business on the Internet? It's a debate, and the U.S. Supreme Court just agreed to look in on it. The ramifications on intellectual property rights will be altered significantly depending on how the court weighs in on this. READ MORE >

(GreenBiz) IBM (Big Blue) and Syracuse University (Big Orange) are working together to build a data center that will use 50 percent less energy than existing facilities, making this the first time anyone has mixed blue and orange and come up with green. The plans call for an on-site electrical co-generation system, a DC power source, and a data center infrastructure that will move workloads and applications from server to server to maximize energy efficiency. READ MORE >

Vendor Announcements, Promotions, and Deals

IT Jungle) Do you ever wonder how there can be so many "new and improved" products? It makes you think about what you bought during the last product release cycle and how those enhancements actually played out in terms of the promised productivity gains and cost reductions. Is it heresy to continue using familiar applications even those with the dreaded "legacy" label? Not all software vendors are signed up for that doctrine of accepted practices. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) For those who have invited SQL Server to have a seat at your database feast, the conversation may have already become awkwardly silent after the topics of accessing and updating reports within Microsoft Excel documents. Surely someone knows how to build spreadsheet reports that are automatically refreshed without manual intervention by users. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Hundreds of large retail chain stores depend on JDA Software Group's i OS-based Merchandise Management System (MMS) to automate replenishment activities and other business processes. Now they have an integrated document handling solution that brings PDF-based purchase orders, order acknowledgements, invoices, and other documents that can be captured, routed, e-mailed, stored, and displayed electronically rather than on paper, which can save money and reduce the environmental impact that paper-based products create. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Open source customer relationship management software is getting a closer look and, in some instances, is a better choice for companies that may otherwise be focused solely on commercial alternatives. One point of comparison worth noting is collaboration capabilities when it comes to managing customers, making sales, and marketing tasks. READ MORE >

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources

(Bytware) Although you might think that only Windows users need worry about viruses, the IBM i, OS/400, AIX, and Linux systems in your network are also at risk and could even be the source of infections. This downloadable Webcast covers viruses and malicious code threats, how criminals use malicious code, how viruses gain access to systems, regulatory requirements for virus protection, and how to mitigate the virus threat. READ MORE >

(BCD) This white paper discusses PHP as a technology and as a productive method for transforming legacy applications to Web applications or creating new Web applications from square one. It explains the popularity of PHP, how it is different from other technologies, and uses the company's WebSmart PHP as the focal point for Web application development. READ MORE >

(RJS) For those interested in electronic document management, here's a video with voice over explaining the product features of the RJS document management solution. Although product specific, it doesn't sound like a sales pitch and it explains the benefits of a document management system and what the various features can provide. The presentation was created as a Flash Video and should be viewable on most operating systems. READ MORE >

(Skyview Partners) The "Compliance Without Complexities" handbook, written by security expert Carol Woodbury, provides sound advice on issues pertaining to attaining and maintaining security compliance within whatever regulations you are dealing with. It should help readers figure out how to save time and reduce costs. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

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

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 4 -- Webinar - Accomplishing more work with fewer people is the burden that this online session from Halcyon Software will try to get off your back. The emphasis will be on automating systems. The one-hour presentation begins at 10:30 a.m. EDT. LEARN MORE >

June 10 -- Webinar - Monitoring and controlling *ALLOBJ users will be discussed during this online session hosted by PowerTech, the 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 >

June 10 -- Webinar - The benefits of an IBM i disaster recovery plan that is delivered as a managed service will be discussed in this online session presented by WTS, a hosted services provider with years of System i experience. Topics on the agenda include backup and recovery assessments, disaster recovery procedures, and semi-annual recovery tests. The presentation begins at 11:30 a.m. EDT. LEARN MORE >

June 10 -- Webinar - Modernizing and extending COBOL applications using Java technology will be the focus of this online session presented by Mike Born and Alfredo Iglesias, who will use a real world example to illustrate the points that favored a recent implementation using software from Veryant. The one-hour event begins at 9 a.m. PDT. LEARN MORE >

June 11 -- Kent, Washington - The Pacific Midrange Systems Association meeting features a session on IBM Systems Director 6.1, a platform management foundation that streamlines the way physical and virtual systems are managed across a multi-system environment. Guest speaker is Mark Ruberry, an IBM senior technical sales specialist. The meeting begins at 11:30 a.m. and will be held at the CenterPoint Corporate Park located at 20809 72nd Avenue South, Suite 120. LEARN MORE >

June 16 -- Costa Mesa, California - An incremental approach to application modernization involving ILE, PHP, AJAX, and SQL will be presented by guest speaker Dan Hogan at the monthly meeting of the OCEAN User Group of Southern California. Hogan will explain the struggles and successes his company experienced while updating skills and modernizing applications using Web-based programming techniques. Tips and tricks, as well as mistakes, will be revealed. The meeting takes place between 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. at the IBM-FileNet offices located at 3545 Harbor Boulevard. LEARN MORE >