Timothy Prickett Morgan
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Ruby And Existing Databases
May 5, 2015 Aaron Bartell
… Read moreRecently I came across a scenario for a customer where I was asked, “How do we interact with our existing DDS-based, composite key, database tables?” That’s going to be a very common trait of most all IBM i shops using Ruby, and this article will cover some common situations you will come across as you use Ruby to interact with existing DB2 for i tables.
First things first, let’s lay out two tables defined with DDS, as shown below. Note how the ORDDTL table has a composite key. The ibm_db Gem follows the ActiveRecord pattern and that pattern expects surrogate
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An Open Letter To IBM From A Developer
May 4, 2015 Garry Taylor
… Read moreThe only thing that I request from IBM, is the ability to develop software for their IBM i platform. Am I asking too much? I don’t think so. Allow me to elaborate. I have been developing on IBM i since 2008. In that time, I’ve used public systems, had the use of business partner’s machines, and way back in time I had my own 9401/150 developer system with all compilers installed. Recently though, I have been wishing to ramp up my efforts on IBM i, to develop more software, more seriously.
Now, on any other computer platform I can
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IBM Upgrades High-End And Low-End Power8 Machines
May 4, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIn last week’s issue, we told you that IBM was working on rounding out the Power8-based Power Systems lineup with a four-socket midrange machine rumored to be called the Power E850 and that it was also expected to expand the high-end Power E880 line with its full complement of Power8 processors. We didn’t expect hardware announcements at the COMMON midrange conference in Anaheim, but on Tuesday last week Big Blue went and put out some of the new Power8 iron anyway without doing a formal announcement.
Specifically, in announcement letter 115-021, IBM has added some processor options for low-end,
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Power Systems Sales Return To Growth
April 27, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIt has been a long decline as the Unix and proprietary systems market succumbed to the double whammies of server virtualization and Moore’s Law increases in performance and decreases in price/performance, but it looks like IBM‘s Power Systems business may have found a new floor on which it can build some growth. That is a lot better than the overall IBM business can say, which has been slipping quarter by quarter, for years now and which did it again in the first quarter of 2015.
In the quarter ended in March, IBM booked $19.5 billion in revenues, down 11.9
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The Remaining Power8 Systems Loom
April 27, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThe rumors have started going around that IBM is getting ready to launch the remaining members of the Power8 family of Power Systems machines. We had been anticipating that these machines might come out in concert with the COMMON user conference in Anaheim, California, this week or perhaps at the IBM Edge2015 conference to be hosted in May in Las Vegas. We still do not know for sure when the expected midrange and high-end Power8 machines are coming, but they are not launching at COMMON as far as our sources know.
Last fall, when the Power E870 and half of
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Ruby And DSLs And Blocks
April 21, 2015 Aaron Bartell
… Read moreWhen I started with Ruby I was immediately drawn in by its syntax–simple, elegant, and easy to peruse. At the time I didn’t know this was an intentional mantra of the language put in place by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, Ruby’s creator. Matz said that he was “trying to make Ruby natural, not simple,” in a way that mirrors life. Further, Matz stated “Ruby is simple in appearance, but is very complex inside, just like our human body.” Let’s take this out of metaphor-land and into tangible code by introducing the DSL, or Domain Specific Language, aspect of Ruby.
First, what
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Joining On Ranges
April 21, 2015 Ted Holt
… Read morePeople are ingenious. Where there’s a need, they find a way. Unfortunately, some of the ways they find don’t jibe well with relational databases, which makes my work life messy. Fortunately, I know a few ways to clean it up, and here’s one of them.
Suppose you work for a company that sells office supplies. One day someone walks into your office and asks for a report of sales of boxes. “Sure thing!” you reply. “How do I know that an item is a box?”
“Easy,” he replies. “The item number begins with 134.”
Easy, indeed.
select ItemNumber, Description from
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An SQL Pivot Procedure
April 21, 2015 Paul Tuohy
… Read moreThe basic concept of a pivot is that row values are transformed into column values. I have often wished that DB2 had a pivot procedure. But until that day arrives I will have to make do with a workaround that you might find useful too.
The workaround is in the form of a stored procedure that can be used to pivot any column in any table. Before getting to the stored procedure, let’s look at a simple pivot example.
These examples are using the SALES table in the DB2 sample database. To create the DB2 sample database on your system,
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Observations From Oracle Collaborate 2015
April 20, 2015 Richard Schoen
… Read moreEach year the three largest Oracle user groups combine to host a user group event called Collaborate. With more than 1,200 educational sessions, you can see there’s a lot going on. Cloud and mobile strategy implementation were highlighted, as was the increasing impact of big data and analytics.
To a large degree, the conversations I had at this event stemmed from the software and services my company offers–HelpSystems was an exhibitor in the expo area–but this event provided a view into a large group of IBM midrange users who are similar to, but also different from, the attendees at
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Big Blue Provides Extended Support For IBM i 6.1
April 20, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreOperating systems do not last forever, but they can and do go on for a long, long time in the corporate datacenter–at least the way operating systems, databases, and applications are configured in monolithic fashion these days. In other realms of corporate computing, companies are thinking about moving to lightweight software containers that wrap around microservices and heavier pieces of code, allowing for the operating system underneath the container to be updated without messing with the system and application code running in the container.
But most of us don’t live in that world and we are wrestling with monoliths and