Dan Burger
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ARCAD’s Free-Format Conversion Tool Passes Real World Test
October 21, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe conversion of fixed-format RPG to free-format RPG has created a great deal of interest in the IBM i community since support was added in Technology Refresh 7 of IBM i 7.1 late in 2013. Barbara Morris, a member of the RPG compiler development team at IBM‘s Toronto lab has been the IBM spokesperson on the topic, drawing crowds to technical sessions online and at local user groups and technical conferences.
One of the benefits free-format RPG offers is that it modernizes RPG to the extent that it is understandable to programmers familiar with Java and .NET, but who
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iBelieve Tour Returns to Europe
October 21, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreIBM midrange shops in Europe, be on the lookout–the iBelieve road show, an enthusiastic exercise in IBM i advocacy and “i can do” spirit, is making the rounds. You can count on it making some noise, too. iBelieve events are one-day participatory theater combining education and entertainment.
Retired IBM chief scientist Frank Soltis leads the group of iBelieve speakers that includes IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will, Product Offering Manager Alison Butterill, IBM i advocate extraordinaire Trevor Perry, Maxava‘s Matthew Ashton and Paul Hodgkinson of looksoftware. (For entertainment, you’ll get great stories from Soltis and you might get
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Sharing Power Systems: An IBM i And Linux Story
October 20, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreIf you want to have a conversation with IBM‘s Doug Balog about i on Power, be prepared for Linux on Power to be part of the discussion. The two are inseparable when you’re the person running the Power Systems business, which, by the way, is exactly what Balog does. The reason i and Linux are inseparable is because they are each very good at different things and they need one another to be good at everything.
Balog sees Linux on Power as the answer to every aspect of the systems of engagement. He sees IBM i and AIX as
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2020 Processor Technology Could Unite Power And Mainframe Chips
October 20, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreIt happened once. Could it happen again? Many IT Jungle readers recall IBM‘s decision to converge the System i and System p lines, which resulted in Power Systems. A shared Power processor and common system architecture for both platforms was a business choice that made sense at the bean-counter level. And at the technology level, there would not be a lot of blood on the floor. The savings over the long haul would be the salve that healed all wounds.
There was a time when the convergence of those two lines was unimaginable, much like the conventional thinking today
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Krengel Technology Is Ready For Ruby
October 20, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreKrengel Technology, a custom software company in the IBM i community since 1996, is getting into the Ruby on Rails Web development/application modernization business. And if you’ve been paying attention to Rudy and Rails and how they apply to IBM midrange shops, you won’t be surprised to hear that Aaron Bartell is in the middle of Krengel’s plans. Bartell was instrumental in getting Ruby on Rails ported to IBM i and supported beginning with Technology Refresh 7 of the i 7.1 release. Now the time has come to see if the IBM i community is ready for Ruby.
For
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IT Infrastructure Not Up To The Task
October 20, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe importance of IT infrastructure is the nail that Big Blue keeps hammering regardless of whether the topic is cloud, analytics, mobile, or social (CAMS)–which are topics IBM likes to talk about almost as much as infrastructure. Well, the reality is that any one of the CAMS topics requires some attention be paid to infrastructure, because the overwhelming majority of organizations do not have the infrastructure in place to handle cloud, analytics, mobile, or social deployments.
In a recently released IBM report on infrastructure based on a survey of 750 IT executives around the world, only 10 percent say their
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IBM Navigator for i Increases Web and Mobile Effort
October 14, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreAlong with the Technology Refresh announcements for IBM i 7.2 and 7.1 last week came enhancements for IBM‘s Navigator for i, the integrated, Web-based console that handles systems management tasks. Navigator is available in a client version as well as a Web version, but IBM has made it clear the Web is the way of the future. That strategic direction is not new. It’s where you’ll find the product enhancements.
For those introduced to the Web-based version of Navigator as far back as the debut of IBM i 6.1, that ugly duckling is on its way to becoming a
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IBM Navigator for i Increases Web and Mobile Effort
October 14, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreAlong with the Technology Refresh announcements for IBM i 7.2 and 7.1 last week came enhancements for IBM‘s Navigator for i, the integrated, Web-based console that handles systems management tasks. Navigator is available in a client version as well as a Web version, but IBM has made it clear the Web is the way of the future. That strategic direction is not new. It’s where you’ll find the product enhancements.
For those introduced to the Web-based version of Navigator as far back as the debut of IBM i 6.1, that ugly duckling is on its way to becoming a
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App Dev, Database Top IBM i TR9 and TR1 Enhancements
October 13, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreIBM midrange shops that have upgraded to the i 7.1 and i 7.2 releases of the IBM i operating system have a new batch of enhancements as the latest round of Technology Refreshes was announced last week. Application development, database management, security, and support for the new enterprise-class Power8 machines will grab the attention of most IBM i advocates. The two releases–TR9 for i 7.1 and TR1 for i 7.2–are almost identical.
Programmers and software developers will get the most out of these latest upgrades to the operating system and support for REST-based services tops the list of OS enhancements.
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IBM ‘Openly’ Rancorous At Enterprise Event
October 13, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreIBM is poised to redefine enterprise IT. Of course, IBM pretty much defined it in the first place, so you have to take that into account. And with poise in short supply in IT, maybe self-assured is a better description. IBM surely lacked no confidence as it put on a show for its enterprise customers last week in Las Vegas, where talk of billion dollar investments, trailblazing new technologies, and pioneering open systems partnerships attempted to outshine the city of lights.
With the final paperwork completed on the sale of IBM’s System x X86 server business just a week ahead