Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web

(IT Jungle) I suspect a few of you, like me, have received birthday cards with these inspirational words: "You're not getting older. You're getting better." Speaking for myself, I can assure you that, for the most part, truer words have never been written. After 20 years of fighting business computing battles, the same can be said for the IBM AS/400 or whatever name Big Blue and users of other platforms want to call it. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) If enterprise computing has its equivalent of the automotive world's "race on Sunday, sell on Monday," it's the sales push provided by wearing certain benchmark crowns--the TPC-C, for instance. A benchmark victory may not have the drama and excitement of side-by-side sparks in arenas filled with hundreds of thousands of fans, but don't think that IBM or HP or Sun or any of the rest don't savor the victory to the same degree. READ MORE >

(Enterprise 2.0) The title of this article, "Enterprise 2.0: On its Way but Hardly There," says it all. Based on a panel discussion at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, there's resistance from mid-level management and from end users, even though executives may see the benefits of the technology. READ MORE >

(Internet Evolution) CEOs are struggling to effectively manage the changes they believe are required to move their companies forward. How do they identify what changes need to be made? They ask their customers. Check out this quick read about the IBM Global CEO Study, which includes a link to the complete survey and its insights into the global business environment. READ MORE >

(System iNetwork) When Sun Microsystems purchased the popular open-source database company MySQL, the news likely surprised some System i users causing involuntarily spitting of morning coffee all over their monitors. For those who are still anxious about what MySQL control by an IBM competitor may bring in the way of bad news, here's a short interview on that topic with Eileen Burgess, an alliance manager for MySQL. READ MORE >

(Zend Blog) If you read Four Hundred Monitor last week, you might remember the story about Mike Pavlak's recent hire at Zend Technologies, a System i software vendor in the midst of PHP Web application development activities. Pavlak's blog this week (We i5 Folks Got It Easy) relates his experiences as possibly the only System i guy at a recent PHP conference and he's wondering why those Intel box users put up with all that complexity. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Talk about hungry. The computer industry is going through chips as if there's an endless supply of guacamole. But that's nothing compared to the gluttonous habit of devouring disks. Storage. We just can't get enough storage. And that growling in our bellies is music to the ears of IBM, EMC, and others. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) This one falls into the rare category of man bites dog or Boston sports fan admits to being humble. You just don't often hear of security vulnerabilities on the OS/400, i5/OS, and i operating systems. Take a guess where this potential trouble-maker resides before clicking on this link for the answer. READ MORE >

Vendor Announcements, Promotions, and Deals

(IT Jungle) With the growing incidence of virtualized environments where IT departments are wringing 80 to 90 percent utilization rates out of their physical hardware, a sudden spike in processing demand can crash servers and bring IT managers to their knees as critical applications lay lifeless on the data center floor. Sickening, isn't it? Well, just remember, monitoring performance metrics might keep your neck off the chopping block. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Here's the scenario: You've just come out of a meeting with all the mid-level managers--some who actually work for a living and others who are there for inexplicable reasons--and you now are tasked with making a new business objective attainable. The goal is to create and deliver applications that reduce paperwork, accelerate decision-making, and help ensure regulatory compliance. The list of benefits to the company is impressive, but how are you going to do it? READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Logging security events is built into the IBM System i operating system. That's not new. It was there in i5/OS and OS/400, too. It's a useful feature and has been put to good use. The problem, however, has been that the events need to be converted into the Syslog format, so they can then be consumed by third-party security information and event management tools. That's not a problem anymore. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Business intelligence tools often resemble Swiss Army knives. Some of them can do many things, but only do a few of those things really well. There's the "nice to have" list and the "have to have" list. In BI tools, at the top of the have to have list is the capability to build executive dashboards and being able to open results into Excel spreadsheets. What you really need after that is up to you and your BI tool vendor, who will probably show you things you didn't know could be done. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) When it comes to modernizing applications, one thing that we've come to learn is that this is not the narrow road that IBM once made it out to be. Freedom of choice has replaced the strictly Java road map of the past. What works best for one situation may not work well in another, but here are eight companies that agree on a common application modernization track. READ MORE >

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources

(IBM) This report on virtualization technology focuses on implementing VMware Infrastructure 3 with System i integration with BladeCenter and System x. It presents reasons for considering this implementation and a guide for planning and installing it, creating backup and recovery, and the administration and management of a virtualized infrastructure. READ MORE >

(IBM) The IBM Global CEO Study, based on interviews with 1,130 business and public sector leaders in 45 countries, provides perspectives on strategic issues such as global integration, new and changing customer groups, and business model innovation. It offers perspectives on moving companies forward in the next five years, 10 years, and beyond. READ MORE >

(NetManage and HiT Software) When it comes to using legacy data and transactions outside the legacy system, most organizations choose to export the unstructured data in real time while keeping the legacy system as the primary system of record while enabling external data users and business units with structured data via relational database. This report details how that is accomplished without writing SQL statements, which is the most often considered alternative. READ MORE >

(NGS) Business intelligence on the System i and the new Power Systems servers comes in a variety of options. IBM is very fond of its own software called DB2 Web Query. New Generation Software, in this white paper, compares DB2 Web Query with the NGS alternative called NGS-IQ. Among other things, this report examines the capabilities of these two products, the cost of implementation, licensing terms, and product support. 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 19 -- Webcast - Frank Soltis, a worldwide spokesman for the AS/400 and the chief architect of the machine, will present a 45-minute discussion about the future of the IBM i platform beginning at 10 a.m. EDT. This event is sponsored by Tango/04. LEARN MORE >

June 24 -- Nashville, Tennessee - This meeting of the Tennessee IBM Mid-Range User Group will feature a presentation on the IBM Power Systems including the Power6 servers and the i 6.1 operating system. It will be held at the HCA Corporate Headquarters, 2545 Park Plaza, Building 3, Conference Room 110, and begins at 11:30 a.m. LEARN MORE >

June 25 -- Independence, Ohio - Data analysis and systems automation 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. Guest speaker is Tom Huntington, vice president of technical services at Help/Systems. LEARN MORE >

June 25 -- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - The Delaware Valley Computer Users Group will host a presentation on the new Power Systems and the DB2 enhancements for i 6.1. Guest speakers will be IBM's Rick Clements and Mark Anderson. The event, which will be held at the Union League of Philadelphia, begins at 5:30 p.m. LEARN MORE >

June 25 -- Webinar - The migration path from Query/400 does not necessarily lead directly to DB2 Web Query. In this session, presented by New Generation Software, a comparison is made between New Generation Software's NGS-IQ and DB2 Web Query. Topics of discussion include replacement factors considerations such as ease-of-use, performance, licensing terms, and support. The NGS-IQ product will be used to demonstrate the capabilities related to building business dashboards, OLAP presentations, Microsoft Excel reports, and includes a look at the NGS Query/400 API that enhances existing queries with a variety of output options. The presentation begins at 1 p.m. CDT. LEARN MORE >

June 25 -- Jacksonville, Florida - Two sessions are lined up for this rare evening meeting of the Jacksonville iSeries User Group. At 6 p.m. the presentation topic will be leveraging IT investments and communication infrastructure to improve employee productivity, grow customer satisfaction, and improve the bottom line by using voice over IP technology. Guest speakers are Vinu Thomas, a Sirius executive practice leader, and Larry Johnson of 3Com, one of IBM's VoIP business partners. At 7:15, the topic switches to IBM's Host Access Transformation System (HATS) with an emphasis on altering green screen applications to get the look and feel of a graphical user interface. Also on the discussion agenda are topics such as creating Web services from legacy RPG applications and portlets without coding. This session will be presented by Doug Piner, a senior architect at Sirius. The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. at the IBM Offices, in Deerwood Park North. For additional details and to register for the event, email: benbrower@comcast.net LEARN MORE >

June 26 -- Bolton, Ontario, Canada - The Toronto Users Group is participating in a charity golf tournament benefiting Bloorview Kids Rehab. Starting time is 8 a.m. LEARN MORE >

June 30 -- Irvine, California - The 15th Annual OCEAN Tech Conference, Vendor Expo, and Executive Breakfast-Briefing on ROI is scheduled to take place at the Irvine Hyatt Regency Hotel. This full-day event includes training for developers, systems support, and IT management and includes some of the top experts in the business as well as a vendor expo. The six educational tracks include RPG IV, i5Web Development, Security and Infrastructure, System i5 Integration, and New Technology. A discounted registration fee is available until June 1. LEARN MORE >