Timothy Prickett Morgan
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IBM Opens Up Coherent Protocols For Power Chips
October 24, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIn case you did not get the memo, IBM is dead serious about promoting the Power architecture as a credible alternative to the Xeon architecture from Intel and the various upstarts that want to take a piece of the processing action in the datacenter. The OpenPower Foundation, formed a little more than three years ago, is the center of gravity for the Power push, but Big Blue has aspirations for some of its technology that go well beyond its own chips.
That is why IBM is forming the OpenCAPI Consortium, a group of like-minded IT suppliers and customers who
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SQL PL Conditional Structures
October 18, 2016 Ted Holt
… Read moreRecently I gave a brief introduction to the SQL Procedures Language, or SQL PL, a procedural language that works with the DB2 family of database management systems. Today I present the conditional structures, IF and CASE. If you so choose, you will master them in minutes.
But first, I need to clear up one matter. In my previous article, I referred to SQL PL as a proprietary language. Mike Cain, of the DB2 for i Center of Excellence, emailed to correct my error. Mike pointed out that SQL PL is based on SQL/Persistent Stored Modules (SQL/PSM), which is an
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A Style Guide for Modern RPG and ILE, Part 2
October 18, 2016 Paul Tuohy
… Read moreOne of the basic principles of programming is that coding conventions (guidelines and standards) improve the readability of source code and make software maintenance easier. Coding conventions provide the foundation for developing applications that are easy to maintain and modify. This article completes the style guide to coding RPG programs using free-form RPG in an ILE environment started in A Style Guide For Modern RPG And ILE, Part 1.
Older Functions
When using free-form RPG (and nothing but free-form RPG), a lot of the old RPG “functionality” is no longer available (e.g., operation codes such as MOVE, MOVEL, GOTO,
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IBM Brings DDR4 Memory To Bear On Power Systems
October 17, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreEvery new generation of DDR main memory brings advantages of lower latency, higher frequency, higher bandwidth, and lower energy consumption, and this is always a good thing for any server platform. The Power8 systems that launched in 2014 with the Power8 processors were based on DDR3 technology, which was mature at the time and, frankly, less costly for IBM to deploy in its systems then DDR4 DIMMs would have been.
Now that DDR4 pricing has come down, thanks in large part to the widespread adoption of this chip technology by Intel‘s “Haswell” and now “Broadwell” lines of Xeon E5
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The Negative Impact Of Software Pricing On The IBM i Community
October 17, 2016 Pete Massiello
… Read moreHere is an important question: Are some independent software vendors having a negative impact on IBM i? You are probably thinking that this question is a little harsh. But time and time again, I continue to get questions from customers on this issue. As such, I feel compelled to address it and take a look at what is currently going on.
Starting with a little history will help. Back–and I mean way back when the AS/400 was first announced nearly 30 years ago–remember what the AS in AS/400 stood for: Application Systems. Without a doubt, the success of the
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The Deal The Power 850C Implies For IBM i Shops
October 11, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreAs we have been hearing on the grapevine, IBM is indeed going to put out a cloudy, revved up version of its four-socket Power Systems machine, the Power E850C. This system actually features a faster–and hotter–Power8 processor, which gives the machine a little more oomph so it can better compete against systems based on Intel’s Xeon E5-4600 and Xeon E7-4800 motors. This machine also represent the entry level of the C-style cloudy systems that IBM has cooked up, which sport OpenStack cloud controllers and PowerVM hypervisors for building private clouds.
But like the Power E850 predecessor that Big Blue
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What’s In A Save File?
October 4, 2016 Ted Holt
… Read moreNote: The code accompanying this article is available for download here.
Juliet wondered, “What’s in a name?” Ted wondered, “What’s in a save file?” The Display Save File (DSPSAVF) command would show me only so much, so I wrote a utility to give me more information. Maybe it will be helpful to you.
It’s common for me to exchange save files with other IBM i professionals. One problem I often run into is that someone (who might be me) cannot restore a save file to their system because the save file was created for a more recent release of
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A Style Guide For Modern RPG And ILE, Part 1
October 4, 2016 Paul Tuohy
… Read moreOne of the basic principles of programming is that coding conventions (guidelines and standards) improve the readability of source code and make software maintenance easier. Coding conventions provide the foundation for developing applications that are easy to maintain and modify. This article and an article to follow are a style guide to coding RPG programs using free-form RPG in an ILE environment.
When developing guidelines and standards, one of the major challenges is to determine what is a standard and what is a guideline. For example, code indentation would be a standard, but whether the code is indented by two,
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Private Big Iron Power8 Clouds To Puff Up With IBM i
October 3, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreLast month, at the Edge conference in Las Vegas, IBM rolled out a new subset of the Power Systems line aimed at midrange and large enterprises that want to build private clouds. In the past, IBM’s cloud efforts have been centered around its low-end Power machinery, with one or two sockets, with the assumption that companies want to build Power clouds that look like distributed, virtual, and orchestrated systems based on Intel Xeon E5 processors.
This is not necessarily a valid assumption.
A cloud is about orchestration and automation, not about a particular form factor and NUMA scalability of a
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IBM Prepping For October Power Systems Push
October 3, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIt is officially the autumn now, and that usually means Power Systems hardware and software announcements from IBM. IBM is not going to refresh its commercial Power Systems line with Power8+ processors this year, as it might have done with the strategy from years past, but as we pointed out a few weeks ago, there is a Power8 chip with integrated NVLink ports aimed at hybrid supercomputers.
An aside: Europeans say “autumn” because it sounds less severe that “fall,” a reference to deciduous forests losing their leaves I presume, but autumn only came into English usage from Latin by