Timothy Prickett Morgan
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Start Planning For New Systems Now
September 26, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreServer buyers sure do have a lot to think about these days. Perhaps more than they have had to consider in a fourth quarter of a year in a number of years, in fact. That’s because there are a lot of new processors due from IBM, Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, and Oracle. The latter doesn’t have much of a direct effect on IBM i shops, right?
Correct–right up to the moment when Larry Ellison’s sales force suggests you dump your Power Systems gear and run JD Edwards EnterpriseOne on a cluster of Sparc T and Sparc
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Running Down Cache Battery Rumors and More on Damaged Objects
September 21, 2011 Hey, Joe
… Read moreI read your article about changing iSeries disk caching batteries. You said that iSeries administrators should call IBM to send out new batteries, and then schedule an IBM service call for replacement. Is this considered standard IBM maintenance or are batteries a consumable item that is billable? I’ve heard rumors of changes in IBM’s policy, where they are starting to charge for batteries…
–Brian
With some help, I ran this issue past both an IBM Certified Engineer (CE) and someone in IBM CE dispatch. Both people said that it was just a rumor and that cache battery maintenance falls
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A Better Way to Display Quick 5250 Messages in RPG
September 21, 2011 Hey, Mike
… Read moreNote: The code accompanying this article is available for download here.
Here are a couple of code snippets containing a call to the QUILNGTX API that does a much better job than the DSPLY opcode. This API has been around for a long time (before/free), and we wrapped it into a service program procedure to make it easier to use.
As you can see from the included code sample, it only takes a character work variable to contain the text to display, and a call to the ShowText subprocedure to display a message. It shows a pop-up box
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Call-backs Simplify File IO
September 21, 2011 Bruce Guetzkow
… Read moreNote: The code accompanying this article is available for download here.
Writing subfile programs to display a list of data elements is a task most IBM i programmers have done countless times. It can be tedious and extremely repetitive, especially if you are listing information from the same file in multiple programs. Since the logic is nearly identical in all of those programs, wouldn’t it be great if we could put some or all of it into a service program that could be used in many places?
The part of the process that is common to all of those
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The System i PTF Guide Is Back
September 19, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreLong-time readers at IT Jungle and especially those that are trying to sort out IBM‘s patches for the IBM i operating system every week, rejoice. The System i PTF Guide is back.
The System i PTF Guide is put together by Doug Bidwell, the president of DLB Associates, an IBM business partner that supports midrange customers on the OS/400 and Windows platforms, including suites from JDE, Lawson, SSA GT, Harris Data, Friedman, and others. Bidwell knows his midrange hardware cold, and as a service to all of IT Jungle‘s readers for many years, he has put together the
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Disk Storage Sales And Capacity Both Up in Q2
September 19, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThere’s no shortage to the amount of digital junk that we want to keep, just in case it might be useful some day, and because of this, the disk array business continues to see both revenue and capacity shipment growth grow even as disk subsystems get more efficient at storing data.
In the second quarter, the analysts at IDC reckon that total disk array revenues rose by 10.2 percent to $7.49 billion while aggregate capacity rose by a stunning 46.7 percent to 5,353 petabytes. Sales of external disk arrays–the kind used by most midrange and high-end servers–rose by 12.2 percent
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Maxava Makes $45,000 In iFoundation Awards
September 19, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreBack in late March, high availability software maker Maxava put $50,000 of its money where all of our mouths were to try to help out the IBM i community.
June 30 was the cutoff date to put in an application for a grant of a few grand, which could not be used for any personal expenses or any other costs that had been already incurred by a user group or other organization.
Allan Campbell, chief executive officer of Maxava, tells The Four Hundred that there were over 20 applicants for iFoundation grants, and that most of them were approved. “We
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Reader Feedback On As I See It: Going Silent
September 19, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreVictor, really good article on the need for and benefits of silence. Thank you!
In Tai Chi, we say that “stillness is the master of unrest.” You’ve stated the same thing with regards to silence. Well done, sir.
–Mike
Thanks for another terrific article. I also enjoy backpacking in the mountains. . . . especially the Sierra, when I can get there from Rhode Island.
–Ed
Victor, I have enjoyed all your columns for some time but Going Silent, which struck a chord, prompted me to say thank you. Very much.
–Tim
I really enjoyed your article this week. I
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European Power Deal Tweaked, Zero Percent Financing Down Under
September 19, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThe Power Systems business is humming along relative to other Unix and proprietary platforms, but success for IBM is measured relative to itself, quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year and at the bottom line. And thus Big Blue has doubled down on a Power Systems rebated deal designed to get European companies off old iron and onto new, as well as offering financing deals across its server and storage line in Australia and New Zealand to attract some business.
Under the 2011 Power Trade In Program NE IOT, IBM is offering customers who have old RS64, PowerPC, Power2, Power3, Power4, Power4, Power5, Power5+,
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Windows/400: Windows On Power Systems, Take Five
September 19, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreA moment of indignation on behalf of midrange shops that are up to their necks in both IBM i and Windows: Why on earth does the ARM architecture get a version of Windows ahead of the Power server platform? What’s more important: Hundreds of thousands of customers who spend billions of dollars on expensive systems, or tens of millions of consumers who spend billions of dollars on smartphones and tablets that have hardly any profit margin? Why is the latter billion better than the former, BillG?
Way back when 20 years ago, when I still didn’t have very much hair