Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web

(IT Jungle) When IBM discovered the price of main memory on Power Systems iron was blocking new business from migrating to Power and existing business from consolidating on Power, it had an easy choice to make. Cut prices to facilitate both those circumstances because it's a better long-term strategy than making some extra money now by guarding more profitable memory pricing. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) The session grid at the annual COMMON conference has been scaled back to be more financially prudent and will include 61 new classes as the world's largest IBM i user group alters its education and training program to become more in line with Power Systems and its capabilities that feature AIX and Linux. Session selection, as well as diminished compensation for speakers, has people talking. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Solid state disk is really cool technology, but it doesn't come cheap. For some companies, the value is there and it can be measured. For other organizations, the value is questionable and sometimes it goes unmeasured. Keep in mind that not every job is going to realize a performance gain with SSD. READ MORE >

(IBM Systems Magazine) Open-source software is being used in IBM i shops to boost budgets as well as to leverage and modernize applications. If you feel like the path to open source solutions for IBM i is dimly lit and somewhat treacherous, then you should know where to flip the switch that lights your way. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Sometimes he who giveth also taketh away. Rarely is it the opposite. But that anomaly is under way inside IBM's storage business. The guy who helped EMC take a big bite out of Big Blue's storage business is now in a position return the favor to IBM. But in so doing, the DS8000 disk array might become a victim. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) These are stimulating times and we all know plenty of folks who need stimulation of the economic variety. If you are a mid-market company, IBM might have just what you need. It just announced expanded financing options that cover more products and, in theory anyway, may stimulate more buyers. READ MORE >

Vendor Announcements, Promotions, and Deals

(IT Jungle) Recovery time should not be a disaster on top of a disaster. Where do you start? What are your priorities? You are in "the recovery gap," and if you know a few things about data de-duplication, WAN acceleration, and server virtualization today, it can help you recover when your business depends on it. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Getting a grip on heterogeneous IT environments means having the capability to monitor applications and systems running on IBM i OS as well as other operating systems, databases, application servers, and ERP systems with a single solution. Why complicate things by using separate software for monitoring, alerting, troubleshooting, trend analysis, and planning capacity? Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) My dad always told me it's too late to close the door after the cow is already out of the barn. When there are too many users with free passes to the company's sensitive data, your cows can be out of the barn before you even think about closing the door. One way to keep an eye on the cows is through user activity monitoring. This monitoring option, which will be available soon, provides a screen-by-screen log of users' 5250 sessions. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Like many IT solutions, security is often approached from a single platform point of view. But when multiple platforms interact, single-platform solutions are seldom the answer. Not only that, but depending on technology to do too much results in cost inefficiencies. This ex-IBM security expert turned consultant takes on security from a business perspective and offers return on investment insights to more clearly come to grips with a better strategy. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) A desire to improve report generation capabilities drives most IBM i business intelligence projects. A simple and efficient way to create PDFs or Excel spreadsheets without the assistance of IT technical staff will get the attention of everyone from the CEO to the sales and marketing staff. This is BI for the i guy. READ MORE >

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources

(iMessaging) This white paper covers best practices and proven strategies for converging IBM i data with voice integrations. The focus is on real-time links between existing telephony systems and IBM i business applications. The author is IBM's Michael Rousseaux, the key strategist in IBM's Unified Communications program. READ MORE >

(10ZiG) This archived Webcast examines how desktop infrastructure costs can be reduced using thin clients and centralized management. This session is presented by IBM and its focus is on shared services, desktop virtualization, and achieving a return on investment. READ MORE >

(Infor) Build me a low-cost, highly capable system. Sure boss, no problem. Let's start with an IBM System i platform and I can give you a lean supply chain that is energy and asset efficient and can leverage customer relationships. Here's how it can be done. 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

December 6-11 -- Dallas, Texas - The Computer Measurement Group's annual conference, CMG'09, will include session topics such as cloud computing, software as a service, service oriented architecture, virtualization, measurement and tuning, load testing, modeling, and forecasting in a variety of venues including workshops, how-to tutorials, user-experiences, and problem-solving presentations. More than 150 sessions are on the agenda. LEARN MORE >

December 8 -- Louisville, Kentucky - IBM Power Systems Technical Sales Specialist John Bizon will present a session on virtualization at the KSSA local user group meeting for IBM i professionals. The event will begin at 11:30 a.m. at the Residence Inn located at 120 North Hurstbourne Parkway. LEARN MORE >

December 8 - 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 1:30 p.m. EST. LEARN MORE >

December 8 - 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 1:30 p.m. EST. LEARN MORE >

December 10 -- Milwaukee, Wisconsin - WRKJOB and QShell will be the topics of discussion at the monthly meeting of the Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association. Guest speaker is Tom Davidson, an expert in performance tuning and application development and a long-time member of WMCPA. His first session begins at 4:30 p.m. and the second begins at 7:30 p.m. In between are cocktails, networking, and dinner. The meeting will be held at Alioto's Restaurant located at 3041 North Mayfair Road. LEARN MORE >

December 10 -- Maryland Heights, Missouri - Bruce Vining, an ex-IBMer and one of the top authorities on command language and the i operating system, will be the guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the Gateway/400 Group, a System i user group serving the greater St. Louis area. Vining recently introduced a product that provides direct database access for CL commands a big step forward for CL programmers. The meeting begins with lunch at noon and the presentation following lunch. RSVP no later than Monday before the meeting date. LEARN MORE >

December 14 -- Woodbury, New York - The Long Island Systems Users Group monthly meeting features Trevor Perry, who will be discussing how to become an IT developer in the 21st century. His presentation examines questions professionals face in the next decade, the next promotion, next job, next career, and even retirement. LISUG meetings are held at the Fox Hollow Inn and begin at 6 p.m. LEARN MORE >

December 16 -- Webinar - Organizations can get cluttered with terminal emulator programs, but it is possible to standardize without sacrificing productivity. In this online session, Norm Randa, a product specialist in the connectivity customer support department at Open Text, will cover the details. His presentation begins at 11 a.m. EST. LEARN MORE >