In last week's issue, I talked generally about big data and the use of tools like the Hadoop big data muncher created by Yahoo to emulate the very early unstructured data processing and related file system created by Google to power its search engine. While you do not have to take a snapshot of the Internet and index it continuously, as Google did when the Google File System and the MapReduce batch processing method was created, you do have your own big data challenges.

The reasons why organizations undertake IBM i application modernization initiatives are as varied as organizations themselves. Sometimes, it's people-driven, while other times, the technology itself needs a refresh. With 12 years in the modernization business, the folks at Fresche Legacy (formerly Speedware) have seen it all. Recently, the company shared details of three current IBM i modernization projects.

Being more responsive to customer needs is a common theme these days. Companies can quickly get into hot water by neglecting customers either completely or by choosing favorite segments, such as those with the biggest budgets. IBM's customer consciousness, as it applies to the Power Systems and IBM i community (the focus of IT Jungle newsletters), includes the independent software vendors (ISVs). The IBM i ISVs are hugely important. Big Blue must wish it had a similar vendor base for its other platforms.

When it comes to learning PHP, there is no shortage of information available on the Web, where thousands of tutorials and forums can be accessed with the touch of a button. But for RPG veterans who prefer a little handholding with their PHP, like IBM i consultant Russ Khory, a different approach is warranted. Khory found the WebSmart PHP package from BCD provided a way to learn PHP in an environment that is both structured and productive. New templates just released in WebSmart PHP 9.5 should further boost productivity.

COMMON Europe has given a jolt to the IBM i community, and right as we are approaching the 25th birthday--the silver anniversary, in fact--of the "Project Silverlake" machine that became the AS/400 minicomputer. After a hard look at the attendance data for its European Power Summit 2013 a month from now, COMMON Europe made the tough decision to cancel the event.

The more applications are changed, the more complicated they get. What was originally designed with a certain set of facts in mind, over the course of 10, 20, or more years, almost always becomes convoluted, complex, and unable to keep up with changing business requirements. Many IBM midrange shops face this problem. They spend more time maintaining old complex and inflexible code than providing new business solutions. Many struggle to assess that situation.

In 2004, PowerTech unveiled its first report on the state of security for the iSeries server, as the IBM i platform was then called. The report uncovered major problems at iSeries shops involving passwords, remote access, and user profiles. Fast forward to April 2013 and PowerTech's 10th annual report, which uncovered systemic problems with--you guessed it--passwords, remote access, and powerful user profiles.

The more applications are changed, the more complicated they get. What was originally designed with a certain set of facts in mind, over the course of 10, 20, or more years, almost always becomes convoluted, complex, and unable to keep up with changing business requirements. Many IBM midrange shops face this problem. They spend more time maintaining old complex and inflexible code than providing new business solutions. Many struggle to assess that situation.

It's not exactly what you think. This isn't about speeding tickets or parking tickets. It's about tickets to sporting events and how the IBM i platform and a software vendor in the United Kingdom have teamed up to create a faster, more dependable, and much more user friendly experience for buying tickets and merchandise. It's also about what a performance boost, courtesy of Power7 processors, and an innovation boost, thanks to the cloud, can mean for business.

Surround Technologies recently shipped Accelerator for .NET version 4.0, a major new release of its .NET-centric development tool for creating new applications from IBM i database files, or modernizing existing ones. The new version includes an HTML5 client that can support nearly all of the same user interface controls that Surround Tech has supported on its full Windows client, as well as faster code generation.

With new Power7+ entry and midrange servers fully ramped and Big Blue well into its second quarter, it is time to add the new Power Systems machines to more deals, and that is precisely what IBM has done.

The green screen PDM and the GUI Rational Developer for i (RDi) tools provide developers an easy way to search through source code to find a specified text literal. But what if these tools don't have access to all your code, in particular the SQL code? Many developers may not be keeping an up-to-date source copy of their SQL persisted stored modules (functions, procedures and triggers) and further, may not be keeping a copy of the source at all. If this is the case in your shop, never fear, for DB2 for i maintains a record of the source statements in each SQL-based object that it creates. This information is stored in the DB2 catalog views and can be easily queried.

Linoma Software just increased the potential marketplace for its GoAnywhere software as the result of being awarded a General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule 70 contract, which streamlines the purchase of the managed file transfer (MFT) software by federal, state, and local governments.

I advise, recommend, urge, admonish, and even cajole RPG programmers to quit using subroutines and start using subprocedures instead. Yet I still hear from people who work in shops that allow the use of RPG IV (a.k.a. ILE RPG), but do not allow binding to modules and service programs. Today I offer two ways to use subprocedures that do not require ILE binding.

High availability and disaster recovery software maker Maxava is throwing its money around the IBM i community again, and I mean that in the best way possible. The New Zealand company, which has become an increasingly global company over the past decade, has been generous once again and has ponied up $50,000 to fund the Maxava iFoundation, which it started three years ago.

I want to add another batch job queue to my QBATCH subsystem for submitting reporting jobs that take a long time to process. I want to put them in their own job queue so they can just chug away in QBATCH without interfering with my other batch work. How do I add another job queue that I can submit these jobs to?