• Performance Choices For Power7+ Servers Could Be Complicated

  September 10, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In last week’s issue of The Four Hundred, I gave you the low-down on the forthcoming Power7+ processors from IBM, which are expected to be launched in new Power Systems machines before the end of the year. This information came from a presentation Big Blue’s chip experts made at the Hot Chips 24 conference, and it was refreshing to see IBM talk about the chips a bit before they came out in systems, giving customers some time to ponder their options. If you are an IBM i customer, you are going to need the time because the situation

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• Attachmate Add Features with MFT Update

  September 6, 2012 Alex Woodie

  Attachmate recently updated two members of its FileXpress family of managed file transfer (MFT) products. The new version 7.2 releases of FileXpress Internet Server and Command Center deliver new data integration, authentication, and administrative capabilities that are intended to streamline MFT functions. Attachmate has been selling the FileXpress product line for about three years. The software, which was based on technology it OEMed from Proginet (now part of TIBCO), includes four components, including the core MFT engine, called the Platform Server; a Web portal for customers and trading partners called Internet Server; a central, Web-based management console called Command

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• Admin Alert: Two Useful PC5250 Parameters In IBM i Access For Windows 7.1

  September 5, 2012 Joe Hertvik

  With IBM i Access for Windows 7.1, IBM offers some valuable parameters for customizing Personal Communications sessions (PC5250) to connect to your IBM i partitions. This week, I’ll look at two of these features–setting a default path for PC5250 configuration files; and storing PC5250 window and font information–that can be useful for IBM i administrators trying to provide better control over their user installs. For this article, I’ll discuss two valuable PC5250 configuration parameters that are available with IBM i Access for Windows 7.1. These features are configured through the IBM i Access for Windows Properties screen, which is accessed

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• Checking IBM i OS and PTF Level Status for Sarbanes-Oxley Documentation

  September 5, 2012 Hey, Joe

  I have to write a quarterly procedure for our Sarbanes-Oxley manual that details how we make sure our IBM i operating system and PTFs are current. Our auditors want us to prove that we are up to date on upgrades and fixes. Any ideas on how we can do that? I’m on i 6.1.1. –Bill Here are my thoughts for doing this on a 6.1.1 system. Note: The process I’m describing here can be used to provide operating system and PTF review documentation for any auditing requirements, not just SOX. Review your PTF and upgrade status at least twice yearly

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• Future Coding

  September 5, 2012 Paul Tuohy

  One of my favorite benefits that comes from speaking at conferences is the great questions that get asked of me and other speakers. Even if we can answer the question, be assured the next time we’re gathered with colleagues over a cup of coffee (or other beverage of choice), one of us will say, “I was asked an interesting question at my last conference. . .” At the last RPG & DB2 Summit, I was having coffee with Susan Gantner and Barbara Morris, when Susan uttered those intriguing words. The ensuing conversation didn’t result in a change to the answer

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• Become Omni-Potent With Your IBM i Skills

  September 4, 2012 Dan Burger

  There’s no mistaking the vibe that is picked up by conference attendees. I don’t want to overstate this and make it sound like walking into a conference is a life-changing moment, but there is something that fuels creativity and ambitions when you escape the daily IT department environs and learn something new. Being in a roomful of people who are sharing the same vibe adds to the feeling. It’s a feeling that not enough people are getting in this era of nervously holding the IT reins too tightly. If you are in the Greater Chicago area, you have an opportunity

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• JDA Software Reports Gains With Q2 Financials

  September 4, 2012 Jenny Thomas

  Software license sales picked up for retail and supply chain management software maker JDA Software Group in the second quarter ended in June, rising 6 percent to just over $32 million and helping push up and overall sales for the company by 2 percent to $168.8 million. During the Q2 earnings conference call, JDA president and CEO Hamish Brewer said the company saw some improvement in the first quarter in U.S. retail, which was good news after decline in license sales in North America in the retail market in the fourth quarter of 2011. Software and subscription revenues were a

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• New Software License Sales Stall At Agilysys

  September 4, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Retailers and hotel and casino operators are on the leading edge of the economy, and when people get nervous about spending money on non-essentials, they are often the first ones to feel it. Sometimes, it is an overreaction to news. Sometimes it is just a reaction. Let’s hope for all our sakes that the downturn in software licensing in the June quarter for Agilysys is just a hiccup and not a spreading flu. Agilysys, which last July got out of the remaining part of its hardware business that it had not already sold off to Arrow Electronics five and a

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• zEnterprise EC12 Mainframe: Still The Big Iron

  September 4, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Power Systems had better thank their lucky stars that IBM is still investing in mainframes and can still rake in billions of dollars–my guess is around $15 billion over a two-year cycle–selling mainframe hardware and systems software. Because if IBM did not throw off most of that as profits, there would not be an IBM fab and there would not be a Power Systems biz at all. IBM would have long since ditched the server hardware business to focus on software and services. To a very large extent, the System z product line not only keeps the rest of Big

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• IBM Buys HR App Maker Kenexa For $1.3 Billion In Cash

  September 4, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  You remember the days back in the early Gerstner era, when IBM wanted to assure independent software makers that it would not compete with them so they would port their wares to Big Blue’s servers, operating systems, and middleware? Well those days are long gone, and the acquisition of human resources software provider Kenexa last week just goes to show it. Kenexa, which is based in the Philadelphia suburb of Wayne, Pennsylvania, was established in 1987 as a recruiting service for a bunch of different industry verticals. The company rolled out its first suite of software in 1993 and three

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