Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web

(IT Jungle) Howdy, podners! IBM's reseller channel of more than 100,000 partners is about to get acquainted with some new surroundings. In turn, the end customers are being introduced to a midmarket partner community with a new look. Customer questions for the partners, however, will remain the same. First of all, how are you going to help me grow profits? And, secondly, how are you going to make it easier to work with IBM? READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) For those of you who are dancing the Power Systems acquisition dance, there are a few new steps you should learn before disengaging your partner. Tape drive and disk drive options should be fully discussed because a few new products are on the table. And the i Edition M15 and M25 Express configurations have a few new wrinkles that may not have been apparent when you started this dance. READ MORE >

(IBM Systems Magazine) You can't really go wrong with "look before you leap" advice. And of all things i, there's probably no place better to apply this than when upgrading to the new operating system. What you don't know about i 6.1 could hurt you in more ways than one. Here's a short list of things to think about. READ MORE >

(Information Week) Don't feel sorry for poor little Sybase. It may be a relatively small player in the database market next to IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft, but it has some strong growth numbers to put on the scoreboard. Three consecutive quarters of record revenue growth is indicative of how the company is getting it right. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) TomorrowNow once had a good business supporting companies that ran PeopleSoft, Siebel, and JD Edwards ERP software suites, but didn't like the support provided by Oracle. And it looked like quite the clever move when SAP bought TomorrowNow and introduced those customers to new options--like migrating to SAP software, for instance. Well, things didn't work out quite like SAP planned. READ MORE >

(Managing Automation) For more than a decade, ILOG has had a very good business partner relationship with IBM. The partnership brought business process management, business automation, and service oriented architecture technology to IBM and that was valuable enough for Big Blue to acquire the software company. READ MORE >

Vendor Announcements, Promotions, and Deals

(IT Jungle) Query/400 has been one of those popular tools that seemingly has been around since the days of the mullet hair style and the Chevy Vega. A lot of AS/400 operators thought it was great, but times have changed (for the better). Executives want quick access to key performance indicators; financial analysts need better ways to evaluate profitability or meet compliance guidelines; and business managers need up-to-the-minute sales and inventory information. Welcome to the world of Web-based queries and reports. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Mildly mad, agitated, or severely honked off . . . how do the employees of the average company feel about the level of IT service they are provided? Currently the needle on the irritation gage is wavering between mildly mad and agitated. According to the fever monitors over at Gartner, the temperature is rising, however, and the incidents of employees spontaneously combusting in a tech tantrum fireball are likely to increase. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) The string on the IBM Ultrium tape cartridge pricing yo-yo has gotten tangled and twisted and it's hard to believe the yo-yo still works. But here's proof it still does. Have you ever done the "Around the World" yo-yo trick and broken your mother's antique glass lamp? Just wondering. READ MORE >

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources

(ARCAD) An archive of Webinars pertaining to topics such as testing productivity and automation, change management for application modernization, multi-platform deployments, managing ILE development, application analysis, and WDSc and RSE are available for viewing in exchange for your e-mail address. These recorded sessions are presented by well known experts Ray Bernardi and Trevor Perry. READ MORE >

(IBM) Database modernization has to do with defining databases, screens, and reports so that applications can use SQL as the database access method. Most System i users are familiar with the built-in relational database management system (RDMS) that uses data description specifications (DDS) to define the database physical and logical files. This Redbook provides tips and techniques for modernizing applications to use SQL data definition language (DDL) as the database access method. READ MORE >

(IBM) Successful implementation of data encryption requires planning and this Redbook offers advice on planning and implementation as well as background information on the general concepts of cryptography and data encryption as it applies to database tables. READ MORE >

(essextec) A white paper titled "System i Optimization Best Practices" is available from this consulting company that specializes in IT system architecture design, implementation, and project management. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

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

August 6 -- Jacksonville, Florida - 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 will be the featured topic at the Jacksonville iSeries User Group meeting. Within this presentation will be a discussion of topics such as creating Web services from legacy RPG applications and creating 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 >

August 12 -- Webcast - This online presentation examines one of the most difficult systems management tasks: gaining visibility into multi-tier applications. It focuses on supporting users, diagnosing problems, improving performance, and passing security audits, as well as the tools and techniques for monitoring and auditing database server jobs used by Java, Web applications, .NET access, and Excel. The discussion also will include the pros and cons of IBM's Navigator, i5/OS APIs and commands, and tools from Centerfield Technology, the vendor that is hosting this Webcast. The session begins at 11 a.m. CDT. LEARN MORE >

August 19 -- Costa Mesa, California - A presentation on programming and operations tips is the highlight of the regular monthly meeting of the OCEAN User Group. The OCEAN User Group serves the greater Orange County, California, area and meets the third Tuesday of each month. Meetings are held at the IBM offices located at 600 Anton Boulevard. This one begins at 6 p.m. LEARN MORE >

August 25-28 -- Chicago, Illinois - The IBM See Blue, Think Green Technical Conference examines the growing costs of IT data centers based on energy consumption. Session topics include best practices for efficient data center design, the financial benefits of IT energy management, software tools to measure and manage energy consumption, and new technologies to manage IT operational costs. LEARN MORE >

September 8-12 -- Chicago, Illinois - The IBM Power Systems Technical University will include more than 100 sessions focused on the i environment. Session topics include the new features in i 6.1, PowerVM software, server utilization and sharing I/O resources, consolidation of Intel and i applications, best practices for smooth migration to Power6 and i 6.1, steps to reduce energy costs, high availability, DB2 Web Query, PHP, MySQL, IP telephony, and Lotus Quickr. LEARN MORE >