Timothy Prickett Morgan
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The Supercomputer At The Heart Of The Power Systems Revival
November 28, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreWith both the Supercomputing 2016 conference and Thanksgiving Day behind me, I find myself being thankful that the engineers that helped IBM make the transition from proprietary 48-bit CISC processors to 64-bit PowerPC processors in 1995–yes, that was more than two decades ago–were forward thinking. But as it turns out, there were other technologies, including massive floating point performance and database acceleration, that may in the long run help the entire Power Systems line not only survive, but thrive.
We all know that the PowerPC-AS version of the Power line of chips was the only one of several early attempts
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SQL PL–The LOOP Loop
November 15, 2016 Ted Holt
… Read moreIn the previous episode of this exciting series, I wrote about FOR, arguably the most useful of the SQL PL looping structures. Next in line of usefulness, in my opinion, is the LOOP structure. Like the rest of SQL PL, this is an easy structure to master, and I am pleased to write about it.
In its simplest form, the syntax of the LOOP structure is as follows:
LOOP - body - END LOOP
Here is a more realistic version of the syntax:
label: LOOP - body - END LOOP label
The body contains any assortment of simple statements
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Calling SQL Functions From RPG, A Service Program
November 15, 2016 Paul Tuohy
… Read moreNote: The code accompanying this article is available for download here.
In this article I would like to introduce a service program that provides RPG subprocedure “wrappers” for using SQL scalar functions. This means you can use an SQL scalar function as if it were an RPG built-in function.
Using an SQL scalar function can be a lot easier than using the RPG alternative:
- Use the UPPER function instead of defining two translation strings and using %XLATE.
- Use DAYNAME function instead of calculating the day of the week and using an array to provide the day name.
- Using the
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IBM Cuts Core And Memory Pricing On Entry Power Iron
November 14, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreWe are always trying to get IBM to do more to promote the IBM i platform and the Power Systems hardware that comprises the physical part of that platform. In days gone by, Big Blue used to make very public and loud pronouncements regarding its ability to bring customers more value for the dollar, often above and beyond the Moore’s Law capacity increases that are just part of the chip business and usually at the tail end of the product cycle as we are now with the Power8 machines that have been shipping since April 2014.
IBM is not as
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The Hybrid Cloud Questions IBM i Shops Should Be Asking
November 7, 2016 Lief Morin
… Read moreWhen companies speak with service providers about hybrid cloud technology, many of them want to know right off the bat how much money they can save. That’s the wrong question to ask. The first questions should be: What business challenges do we face? Can the cloud help to address these challenges? And to what extent should we be using the cloud?
A transition to the cloud or a hybrid environment can provide companies with many benefits aside from cost savings, such as a broader set of services, a highly resilient architecture and the addition of a professional organization that manages
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Sundry Fall Power Systems Peripheral Enhancements
November 7, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreWe are still chewing through the October 11 Power Systems announcements, and this week we drill down into a variety of peripheral enhancements related to the IBM i platform. We may not have gotten new Power8+ processors for entry machines, and would have been expected sometime this year, but IBM is doing a bunch of things to make the existing Power8 machines more appealing and less costly to tide itself and its customers over until the Power9 processors ship sometime in the second half of next year.
The midrange and high-end of the Power8 product line have already seen their
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Beyond Hello With Node.js
November 1, 2016 Aaron Bartell
… Read moreIn Why Node.js? we discussed Node.js and how to get up to speed with “hello world” from a program, the Node.js REPL (Read, Eval, Print, and Loop), and a web application. Now we will build on that knowledge by actually creating an application to show your team.
A gent by the name of Rainer Ross recently posted a link to the IBM i Professionals LinkedIn group declaring the benefits of the new Webix framework. (Webix.com is freemium software. There are free versions and paid versions. Please adhere to the licensing.) Because of my comments on his post I received an
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SQL PL–The FOR Loop
November 1, 2016 Ted Holt
… Read moreSQL PL has four looping structures. The most useful one, to my way of thinking, is the FOR structure. It is different from–and more powerful than–the RPG FOR op code, and it’s easy to learn and use. Here’s how it works.
FOR iterates over a read-only result set and terminates when there are no more rows to process. Think of a FOR loop as a read-only cursor without the messiness of OPEN, FETCH, and CLOSE. Let me illustrate with a stored procedure.
create or replace Procedure Billing (in p_BillingCycle dec(3)) for One_Customer as select c.AccountNumber from customers as c where -
IBM i Access Client Solutions For Database
November 1, 2016 Paul Tuohy
… Read moreIf you are an SQL user, you need to get your hands on IBM i Access Client Solutions. After some false starts, it looks as if IBM is heading in the right direction again when it comes to providing tools to help us develop and use SQL. I want to take you through some of the highlights of the database functions of IBM i Access Client Solutions.
Some Background
Over the last few years, trying to find the right tools for the SQL developer has been quite a challenge. There were Run SQL Scripts in System i Navigator, the
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IBM’s Power Systems Stalls A Bit As Power8 Wanes
October 31, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreWith the Power9 chips slated for some time in the second half of next year, and the Power8 systems not being upgraded with a formal Power8+ variant, it is not surprise to us that sales of Power Systems iron based on the Power8 chip that launched in April 2014 are waning. It is the nature of every product cycle to have its ramp, its peak, and its slide. The slide is just a way to extract profits, with the ease of sales and improving yields on chips compensating for the fact that Big Blue has to discount more to move