Timothy Prickett Morgan
-
Let One Row Represent A Group, Take Three
October 27, 2015 Ted Holt
… Read moreFaithful reader Bill Cisne sent me an email with an SQL SELECT query. No comment, no explanation, just code. Bill had figured out how to use a lateral join to solve a problem and was kind enough to share his success with me. I have been aware of lateral joins for some time, but have not found a need for them in my work. Today I revisit a problem to illustrate one way that lateral joins can be useful.
LATERAL is a type of for-each loop within a query. For each row that a SELECT statement (the “outer” query) returns,
-
Using Adopted Authority Wisely
October 27, 2015 Patrick Botz
… Read moreIn my previous tip I explained adopted authority and admonished developers to use it wisely. This tip identifies some rules of thumb you should bear in mind when contemplating the use of adopted authority.
User profile to adopt: If you’re not used to using adopted authority in your applications, one of the first questions that comes to mind might be “which user profile should I adopt?” The most straightforward way to use adopted authority is to adopt the authority of the owner of the objects used by the application.
Rule: Create a user profile with ENABLED *NO, PWD *NONE, Initial
-
It Is Time To Tell Us What You Are Up To
October 26, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreNone of us in the IBM i community can do well by driving down the road at dawn without the headlights on, and without market research, we can’t tell where we are at and where we are going. Back in the early days of The Four Hundred, when having a midrange system at all made you cutting edge, rich data about the customers using these systems was available, for the clever at least.
We were among the clever, but we were dependent on other organizations to do the demographics and survey work that brought us those rich datasets, and
-
Power Systems Shows Growth Again For Big Blue
October 26, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThe good news is that the Power Systems division of IBM‘s Systems Group turned in its third consecutive quarter of revenue growth, something that the Power community of customers, resellers, and software developers most certainly want to see. The bad news is that the rising U.S. dollar compared to other foreign currencies means that overseas sales translate into fewer greenbacks when sales are brought back to IBM’s New York headquarters, masking that growth.
IBM does not report revenue figures for the its Power Systems and System z server lines separately in its financial presentations, but chief financial officer Martin
-
CONST Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Change It
October 20, 2015 Ted Holt
… Read moreYou can pass parameters to an RPG subprocedure in three ways: by reference, by read-only reference, and by value. (I have written about this before.) My favorite method is read-only reference. I use it as often as I can. Would you believe that it is possible to change the value of a variable that is passed to a subprocedure by read-only reference? Since you would probably do so only inadvertently, it’s good to understand how it can happen.
To pass a parameter by read-only reference, include the CONST keyword in the procedure prototype and the procedure interface.
D Process pr
-
Developers Can Improve Security and Reduce the Administrative Cost of Security
October 20, 2015 Patrick Botz
… Read moreOne simple tool allows developers to improve the security of their applications and associated resources and reduce the administrative cost of managing security for the whole system. That tool is adopted authority. Adopted authority is an important tool for developers to have in their toolkit because it allows them to build applications that ensure users never encounter an authority failure even when administrators use PUBLIC(*EXCLUDE) authority on all sensitive resources. The combination of adopted authority and PUBLIC(*EXCLUDE) significantly increases the level of security and decreases the cost of managing security.
It’s true that system administrators can change programs to adopt
-
IBM Updates PowerVM Hypervisor, PowerVC OpenStack
October 19, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIt may seem like the only thing that IBM cares about lately in the Power Systems business is boosting its Linux-based L and LC series lines. But as the latest Technology Refresh updates from October 5 demonstrate (which we have reported on extensively at IT Jungle in the past two weeks), Big Blue is keen on updating the software stack on which IBM i shops depend. And in some cases, this also includes the hypervisor and management tools, as well as Linux running next to IBM i.
In announcement letter 215-262, IBM is updating the PowerVM hypervisor that it
-
IBM Mothballs The Last Of The Power7+ Servers
October 12, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreNext year is when IBM will start rolling out its Power8+ chips, and since the Power8 chips have been in the field since April 2014, it is no surprise that Big Blue is winding down the Power7+ processors that date from October 2012. But if you have a Power7+ system and want parts, or have reasons to add Power7 machines to your fleet, you still have some time on selected models.
In announcement letter 915-205, which came out on September 29, IBM warns customers and business partners that it will be removing the remaining Power7+ machines that have not
-
IBM i Added To Power S822, PurePower Systems
October 12, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreSince the entry Power8 machines launched early last year, we have been arguing that Big Blue needs to offer IBM i on a larger span of the Power Systems machines it has in the portfolio. Customers should be able to device which is the best box for them, just like Linux and AIX shops, rather than have IBM decide that for them ahead of time. IBM’s desire to help managed service providers build denser and cheaper clusters seems to be playing into the favor of IBM i shops that want to run their own machines.
This is a good side
-
Scratch Message Files? Why Not?!
October 6, 2015 Ted Holt
… Read moreIf you read this august publication, you probably know what a scratch file is. (For those of you who know nothing about computers and read this publication solely for its sterling literary merit, a scratch file is a database table or stream file that is used temporarily within a job.) Today I invite you to consider that the advantages of scratch files also extend to scratch message files.
Consider superb RPG program SUPERBPGM2:
ctl-opt dftactgrp(*no); dcl-pr SuperbPgm2 extpgm('SUPERBPGM2'); ouStatus likeds(Status_t); inPlant char(12); end-pr; dcl-pi SuperbPgm2; ouStatus likeds(Status_t); inPlant char(12); end-pi; dcl-ds Status_t qualified template; MsgID char( 7); ProgramName char(10); Plant