Timothy Prickett Morgan
-
IDC Concurs That The Server Racket Is Rough
June 10, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIf you were hoping that the box counters at IDC would have better news about the server business–or lack thereof on some fronts–in the first quarter after Gartner gave its prognosis, sorry. No can do. While the world is consuming more machinery than it did in past years, the revenues are sliding and it is my guess that profits are sliding even faster across the industry.
And that is not a good thing for the major IT vendors, who are depending on lush and luscious system profits to run their businesses for the long haul instead of for the short
-
IBM Rolls Out PureFlex-IBM i Bundle With Decent Discounts
June 10, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThe Edge 2013 conference for IBM customers and partners with a bend toward big data and cloud is under way in Las Vegas this week, but the Power Systems platform running the IBM i is getting some action with a special discounted bundle of hardware, software, and services that will make it less costly and easier for IBM i shops to move to PureFlex modular systems.
I caught wind two weeks ago that there was a special deal coming for IBM i customers running their workloads on Flex System iron, and this turns out to be the case. This deal
-
Admin Alert: Renewing A Default *System Certificate
June 5, 2013 Joe Hertvik
… Read moreIn an earlier column, I described how to solve problems when loading digital certificates into your IBM i Digital Certificate Manager (DCM). This week, I’ll review another DCM problem where the default certificate in the system certificate store (*SYSTEM) expires, and the system starts refusing connections from clients that use digital certificates. This week, let’s examine what happens when a *SYSTEM default certificate expires and how to renew that certificate in DCM.
Getting The Terminology Correct
To untangle what’s happening here, let’s first look at some terminology regarding your partition’s DCM.
A system certificate store, designated by *SYSTEM in DCM,
-
Conditional SQL I/O
June 5, 2013 Ted Holt
… Read moreIf an RPG programmer has a best friend, it may very well be the CHAIN opcode, which performs a random read on a keyed database file. It’s common programming practice in information-processing shops to read one file sequentially and to chain to read a host of others randomly. SQL handles this sort of thing differently. With SQL, joining is the proper way to retrieve data from two or more tables and/or views. The difference is even more pronounced when some of the random processing may or may not take place.
Suppose you’re responsible for a database that contains customer orders.
-
When Is A Source Member Not A Source Member?
June 5, 2013 Susan Gantner
… Read moreI do my coding using Rational Developer for Power Systems (a.k.a. RDP). Most of the time, I open the source code in the editor in RDP much like SEU users would, in the sense that I open my source directly from a member in a source file in a library on IBM i. When I save from the RDP editor, the source is saved back to that same member.
Below is a picture of what my screen looks like when I’m working with RDP as described above. Note the highlighted library, source files, and members in the “Remote Systems” view
-
IBM Rejiggers PowerVM And AIX Prices
June 3, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read morePrices on the AIX variant of Unix from IBM and the PowerVM server virtualization hypervisor that is used to slice up Power Systems iron so it can run multiple copies of AIX, IBM i, or Linux have been tweaked.
In announcement letter 313-045, IBM says prices on AIX and PowerVM have been both raised and lowered, depending on the feature and edition. As usual, it is very tough sorting out what the product feature codes mean in these price changes, but I took a whack at it:
The price changes took effect on May 28. The only reason I
-
Jack Henry Boosts Profits Lots More Than Sales In Fiscal Q3
June 3, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreEvery time the Jack Henry & Associates comes around on the news cycle, it is amazing that no one has tried to acquire the banking software and services provider. It has been on a very long winning streak of pushing up revenues and extracting profits at an even faster rate.
In its third quarter of fiscal 2013 ended in March, Jack Henry boasted sales up 10 percent to $281.5 million. Net income was up 25 percent to just a hair under $46 million, which means the company brought 16.3 percent of sales to the bottom line. That is really not
-
The Server Biz Stalls In The First Quarter
June 3, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThe combined effects of server virtualization, cloud computing, a grumpy global economy, transitions in major server processors, and a shift in form factors for certain kinds of workloads have all combined to make first quarter server sales a little less than they might otherwise be. But, it must be remembered, companies still consumed millions of machines and spent billions of dollars on shiny new iron in the three months ending in March.
By the counting and estimating done by the server geeks at Gartner, the world’s companies consumed some 2.33 million machines of all makes, models, shapes, and sizes
-
IBM i 7.1 TR6 Updated, Licenses Less Restrictive, And i 6.1.1 Ends On Power7+
June 3, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreTechnology Refresh number 6 for the IBM i 7.1 operation system, which came out in February with the entry and midrange servers based on the Power7+ processors, still has that new car smell about it. But ahead of some Power Systems announcements due on June 10 and in conjunction with a special silver anniversary promotion for Solution Edition setups, IBM has rolled out updates to TR6. The company also tweaked IBM i licensing and said Power7+ is the last stop for IBM i 6.1.1.
Yes, I know. That is an update of a refresh. Kinda funny, ain’t it? It feels
-
Power System Tweaks Loom As IBM Offers 25th Anniversary Edition Iron
June 3, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIBM is getting ready to host its Edge 2013 customer and partner event for big data and cloud in Las Vegas next week, and the word on the street is that a slew of Power Systems announcements are on the way. IBM could not keep all of its powder dry, however, and last week put out a special 25th Anniversary deal for entry IBM i boxes.
The Edge event used to be dedicated to storage, but it has expanded to cover Power Systems, System x, and PureSystems platforms, as well as related systems software for this machinery and, of course,