Timothy Prickett Morgan
-
Big Blue To Sunset IBM i 6.1 A Year From Now
September 15, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThe world turns, time marches on, and versions and releases of operating systems come and go. Big Blue put out the IBM i 7.2 software release concurrent with the Power8 “scale-out” systems launch at the end of April, an update to the integrated software stack that was tuned to take advantage of the new hardware. In with the new, out with the old, and that means IBM i 6.1 customers better get prepared to do an upgrade or find budget to pay for extended support contracts for the software.
In announcement letter 914-181, IBM is warning customers that it
-
Admin Alert: Importing IBM i Spooled Files Into Excel
September 10, 2014 Joe Hertvik
… Read moreFor a recent audit, I had to export IBM i spooled file data into Excel spreadsheets to send to our auditors. If you have a similar need for spooled file to Excel conversion, here’s my drill for importing spool file data into an Excel 2010 spreadsheet.
One Goal, Two Paths
You can export spooled file data to an Excel file in two ways: by using a commercial product or by using System i Navigator and the Text Import Wizard from Microsoft Excel 2010.
If you have a third-party product that exports spooled files to Excel format, then by all means
-
The Nearly Forgotten DSPLY Operation
September 10, 2014 Paul Tuohy
… Read moreI am sometimes asked strange questions at conferences. A recent example is: “Which operation code do you use most in RPG?” After overcoming my initial reaction of wondering what the questioner was smoking (and where I could get some), I gave the question some thought. And the answer is: The DSPLY operation.
Now, before you start to wonder what I am smoking (and where you can get some), let me explain. Firstly, the DSPLY operation will never see its way into production code, I only use it in test programs (more in a minute). Secondly, and what a lot of
-
IT Job Creation Outpaces The U.S. Economy In August
September 8, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThe economy in the United States faltered a bit in terms of job creation in August, ending a pretty strong run where the number of jobs created were not only large enough to keep pace with population growth and new workers entering the workforce but also to make a dent in the number of people who were looking for work and could not find it.
According to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not only was job creation weaker in August than expected, with 142,000 non-farm jobs added compared to an expected 225,000, but the numbers
-
Inspur Joins OpenPower To Build Power Machines
September 8, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIt has been a little over a year since IBM got together with Google, Nvidia, Mellanox Technologies, and Tyan to form the OpenPower Foundation to open up the hardware and software technologies around the Power8 processor. The organization now has 53 members, the latest of which is Chinese systems maker Inspur.
In late August, IBM announced a deal that would put its DB2 database and WebSphere Application Server middleware on top of the 32-socket Tiansuo K1 NUMA server, which Inspur describes as a “high-end and fault tolerant computer”. Physically, it looks a bit like an
-
Reader Feedback On Coming Face To Face With An IBM i Recruit
September 8, 2014 Hey, Dan
… Read moreI wanted you to know that I thought your article, Coming Face to Face with an IBM i Recruit (The Four Hundred August 14, 2014) was excellent. We, the aging IBM i faithful, need to seek out and help the next generation join the ranks of employed IBM i professionals.
I am an Omni User (greater Chicago area local user group) board member, and we are making an effort to work with Michelle August and Moraine Valley Community College. In fact, Omni is holding its annual technical conference (September 5 and 6) at Moraine Valley. I am hopeful that
-
Server Refresh Cycle Begins Anew
September 8, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIt looks like we are on the cusp of the next big server refresh cycle, and hopefully all boats will rise with the water level. We could even break a $50 billion year for system sales (that is my estimate, not that of IDC), which is a number we have not seen in many a year in the IT market. Judge for yourself how significant server sales are to the overall health of the IT market, but I have always thought of servers as a bellwether for the overall health of IT given the insatiable desire for more computing
-
IBM Clarifies Power8 Chippery And Performance
September 8, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreA few weeks back, The Four Hundred gave you some details about the performance of Power8 systems and how they were doing a little bit better than IBM had expected on a series of benchmark tests compared to the prior generation of Power7+ machinery. In that story I also discussed the two versions of the Power8 chip and IBM wants to clarify some of the specifics of the Power8 chips and the benchmark results.
Here’s the background. Systems performance engineer Alex Mericas, who works in IBM’s Systems and Technology Group, gave a presentation at the Hot Chips 26 conference in
-
Plotting Out A Power Systems Resurgence
September 8, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIBM is on the brink of shedding its System x server business and freeing itself of the inherent contradiction of wanting to push its own systems and wanting to also be a player in Windows and Linux X86 server arenas that represent the vast majority of shipments and a dominant slice of the revenue pie in the systems market. Soon, Big Blue will be solely a peddler of Power Systems and System z machinery.
Does IBM really believe that it can take on the X86 platform with the maintenance of the mainframe base and a steady and continuing expansion of
-
Automatically Detecting And Re-Enabling Disabled NetServer Profiles
August 27, 2014 Hey, Joe
… Read moreI have a few people that no matter what I do, always manage to disable their i5/OS NetServer (NetServer) user profile when they are opening an IBM i file share. Is there anything I can do to automatically re-enable their profiles when this happens?
–Matt
The first thing I’d do is check to see if there’s a reason your users are automatically disabling their NetServer profile when they try to open an IBM i file share as a Windows network drive. The most common situation I’ve found for auto-disabling NetServer profiles is when a user’s Windows network password doesn’t match