• The Case Of The Late Night FSM Explorer

  January 29, 2014 Jeff Waldbillig

  It was a quiet night on a network that knew how to keep its secrets. I was working the graveyard shift at the help desk, and this night I was still waiting for my first call. Marge Stetson, my supervisor, walked by and after seeing the glazed look in my eyes, told me she’d cover the phones for a few hours if I wanted to do some technical education. Marge knew that a product called the IBM Flex Systems Manager (FSM) was being deployed in our network, and she expected us to field some questions in the next few weeks

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• DB2 For i, Java, And Regular Expressions

  January 29, 2014 Michael Sansoterra

  In today’s world, IBM i developers often find themselves working with more than the relational data stored inside their trusty DB2 database. Coders can find themselves tasked with parsing many kinds of text data including: SMTP email, file contents of an IFS Folder, Java Properties files, free form comments imported from other systems, OCR data for invoices, resumes, XML, HTML, code fragments (RPG, COBOL, C, Java, SQL, VBA), and application logs. While there are many tools available to examine plain text, a regular expression engine provides one of the best generic text processing engines available. Yipes, it’s been over 10

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• Admin Alert: Four Ways To Move An IBM i Partition, Part 3

  January 29, 2014 Joe Hertvik

  The last two issues, I’ve discussed different ways to move an IBM i partition from one location to another. I talked about using traditional backup and restore techniques, as well as using logical replication High Availability (HA) software for partition migration. This week, let’s finish the series by looking at using externally connected storage including SANs, PowerHA SystemMirror for IBM, and Live Partition Mobility for moving partitions. The Four Ways To Move An IBM i Partition To recap, there are four basic ways to move an IBM i partition. Restore the partition in place or to a new location using

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• Where Did My Faulting Guidelines Go?

  January 15, 2014 Doug Mewmaw

  I remember when I first started in the industry how difficult performance management was, especially in the area of memory. The good news was IBM provided clear defined service levels in regards to memory pools. I’m not sure what year I discovered the guidelines, maybe in the 1980s, but I do remember that the published guidelines were so easy. In fact, I can still see the faded yellow sticky note on my desk with the following guidelines. After managing the box for years and attending numerous performance sessions and the like, I discovered the guidelines were not only not talked

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• Dynamic Compound Statements In DB2 For i

  January 15, 2014 Michael Sansoterra

  Dynamic compound statements are sure to be one of the most oft used new SQL features in IBM i 7.1. In general, this feature allows developers to execute a complex set of SQL statements that include variable use, error handling, and conditional logic on the fly without creating a permanent SQL routine such as a function or stored procedure. Dynamic compound statements makes DB2 similar to other database platforms like SQL Server where SQL scripts can be written and executed on the fly. This feature comes in DB2 for i group PTF level 26, so make sure your database PTFs

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• Admin Alert: Four Ways To Move An IBM i Partition, Part 2

  January 15, 2014 Joe Hertvik

  In December, I began discussing four different approaches for moving an IBM i partition from an existing machine to a new location and the different tasks needed for each technique. I talked about using traditional system back-up and restore migration techniques last issue. This issue, I’ll focus on using high availability (HA) software to migrate a partition. Four Ways To Move An IBM i To review, there are four techniques for moving an IBM i partition to a different machine: Restore the partition in place or to a new location using the same system name. This is a traditional restore

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• End-Of-Year Feedback

  December 4, 2013 Hey, Esteemed IBM i Professional

  I hope 2013 was a good year for you. It was my best year in a while. I left a dysfunctional bureaucracy for a company where I can make a difference. I renewed several old acquaintances. And I found out from LinkedIn that I know someone who knows someone who knows Haynes Brooke, the guy who plays the sun in the Jimmy Dean sausage commercials. Let’s close out the year with some of the feedback you’ve been kind enough to send to me. Hey, Ted: In Alan’s Easy Method For Building A CSV File From A Report, you

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• Three Powerful SQL Words

  December 4, 2013 Ted Holt

   

  Louisa May Alcott said, “I like good strong words that mean something.” So do I, especially when they’re good strong SQL words. It gives me great pleasure today to share three powerful SQL words with you. Consider the following summary query: select d.ItemNumber, sum(d.Quantity) as Qty, sum(d.Quantity * d.Price) as Extended from InvoiceLines as d group by d.ItemNumber order by 1 Here’s the result set: ITEMNUMBER QTY EXTENDED A-1 8 88.00 A-3 7 35.00 A-7 7 52.00 B-1 26 51.25 Z-3 2 18.00 Standard stuff, yet very powerful. It beats writing an RPG program to read a file, check

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• Admin Alert: Four Ways To Move An IBM i Partition, Part 1

  December 4, 2013 Joe Hertvik

  I’m currently working with a client to migrate three IBM i partitions to new Power 7+ machines located in two data centers in different states. While there are several ways to approach migration, over the next two issues I’ll discuss four specific techniques for moving an IBM i partition to a new location and the different tasks you have to perform for each technique. Four Ways To Move An IBM i In general, there are four techniques for moving an IBM i partition to a different machine: Restore the partition in place or to a new location using the same

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• Allow Repeated Change With SQL Triggers

  November 20, 2013 Paul Tuohy

  In my previous article, I described how an RPG program as a before trigger, could be used to synchronize two columns in a table. There is an alternative. Instead of using an RPG trigger, we could have used an SQL trigger. An SQL trigger allows us to be more specific about when the trigger is activated and also has the advantage of portability to other database management systems. The scenario was where a date, stored as a packed numeric column, was to be converted to a proper date field. This was accomplished by duplicating the packed numeric column (and

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