• Don’t FLRT with Disaster When it Comes to Applying PTFs

  September 23, 2014 Alex Woodie

  As an IBM i administrator, one surefire way to ruin your day is to apply the wrong program temporary fix (PTF) fix on your system. If you fail to read the fine print in the PTF cover letter, you might just kiss your finely honed IBM i configuration goodbye. But thanks to a free Web-based product from IBM called the Fix Level Recommendation Tool (FLRT), IBM i admins can now get automated guidance into the best course of action. FLRT is a Web-based tool that provides cross-platform compatibility information and fix recommendations for a variety of IBM products. The software,

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• iSphere: A Free and Functional Plugin for RDi/WDSc

  September 23, 2014 Alex Woodie

  If you’re an IBM i developer who works in the Rational Developer for i (RDi) or WebSphere Developer Studio Client (WDSc) environments, you may want to check out a plug-in called iSphere. The free and open source software speeds and simplifies a number of common tasks in the Eclipse-based IDE, including searching and editing files, binding directories, and viewing spooled files. User reviews so far have been extremely positive. RDi and its predecessor, WDSc, are the go-to tools for RPG and COBOL programmers working on the IBM i platform. If you’re doing native development on the platform–i.e. not Java, PHP,

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• There’s No i in Infor Xi

  September 23, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Infor used its annual user conference last week to unveil Xi, a new cloud-based platform designed to provide a common technological underpinning for advancing its collection of enterprise applications, specifically in the areas of mobility, cloud computing, and big data analytics. Infor says that none of its IBM i applications will run directly on the Xi platform, but they may benefit in a tangential manner. The introduction of Infor Xi was the big news at last week’s Inforum 2014 show in New Orleans, Louisiana. Infor Xi is a follow-on to the 10x initiative that Infor unveiled a year ago at

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• Pushed Content Provides Easy Entry to Mobile Development

  September 23, 2014 Dan Burger

  Your excursion into mobile application development can be a lot easier than what you’ve been led to believe. And a lot less expensive, too. A pre-packaged mobile app that allows system administrators and application developers to automatically send mobile device notifications from modern IBM midrange servers or from applications running on those boxes could be the mobile momentum you need. The app, which delivers notifications to iOS and Android mobile devices, was released last week by SystemObjects. SystemObjects calls the app SP4i-Push. It’s a follow-up to SmartPad4i, which SystemObjects introduced in mid-2013. That product was designed to create IBM

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• EXTOL Bolsters B2B Tool for Complex Trading Environments

  September 23, 2014 Alex Woodie

  When you work in a complex supply chain, maintaining data and application integration points among multiple parties can be challenging. Make a change to one system, and it can have unforeseen impacts down the line. This is the sort of situation that EXTOL is looking to alleviate with the addition of “intelligent developer” features in the latest release of EXTOL Business Integrator (EBI). EBI is EXTOL’s flagship EDI and enterprise integration broker software for IBM i, Windows, and Linux. The Java-based suite delivers standard X12 and EDIFACT EDI functionality, but goes beyond that by adding next-gen AS2, FTP/S, and SMTP

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• MPG Discounts VIOS Tracker for PerfNav Customers

  September 23, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Midrange Performance Group (MPG) has put together a superset of its performance management tools for IBM Power Systems environments. Navigator MAX bundles the Performance Navigator for IBM i and Power Navigator for AIX, Linux, and VIOS environments. MPG has been helping IBM i shops get the most out of their hardware investments since the days of the AS/400. The company’s Performance Navigator (“PerfNav”) offering is known as the go-to product for resellers and large shops embarking upon capacity planning and server-sizing exercises. When IBM joined the i5/OS and AIX worlds under the Power Systems umbrella, the Boulder, Colorado, company unveiled

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• Bytware’s Messenger Syncs Up Monitoring

  September 23, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Bytware is shipping version 8.1 of its message management products, MessengerConsole and MessengerPlus. The new release is aimed at ensuring that the various monitoring jobs and schedules are kept in sync across complex environments. The Messenger products automate IBM i operations by continuously monitoring message queues, logs, and journals for critical messages that could indicate failed jobs or backups, security breaches, printer or network errors, or problems with a high availability product. With version 8.1, Bytware says that MessengerConsole can now target “a specific system or systems for monitor synchronization.” This ensures that monitors can be sent to specific servers

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• Interactive Reporting Gets a Boost at mrc

  September 23, 2014 Alex Woodie

  One of the most common uses of mrc‘s m-Power development tool is creating Web-based business intelligence and reporting applications. With a recent enhancement, mrc is giving users even more options for interactive reporting. Interactive reporting is one of a number of pre-built templates that m-Power users can use when they buy a subscription to the tool. The templates provide out-of-the-box capabilities for building interactive reporting applications that run on IBM i and other Java-enabled platforms. Chicago-based mrc made three main improvements to template. The first gives users the capability to modify row dimensions. With static reports, users can’t change

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• Liaison Gets MAD About Token Collisions

  September 23, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Liaison Technologies last week announced it’s been granted a US patent for its Multiple Active Domains (MAD) tokenization technology, which eliminates the risk of the same token being generated for different values, or what’s known as a token collision. While it may sound somewhat whimsical, a token collision is no laughing matter. Token collisions can occur in large, geographically distributed organizations that have multiple data centers. When the same surrogate value, or token, is generated for different pieces of real data, a token collision has occurred, and the integrity of the data is lost. Liaison developed MAD to enable tokens

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• Oracle Teams with Secure-24 for JD Edwards Hosting

  September 23, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Oracle last week announced a partnership with the managed service provider (MSP) Secure-24 that will enable its ERP, CRM, and BI customers to leverage the MSP’s hosting services. The new service, dubbed Secure-24 Cloud Advantage for Oracle, uses the Virtual Compute Appliance (VCA), which Oracle says is a “wire once, software-defined converged infrastructure system” that can run Windows, Linux, or Solaris. Secure-24 has installed Oracle VCAs into two data centers, which form the backbone for the Secure-24 Cloud Advantage for Oracle service. The offering blends managed hosting and disaster recovery services into a single offering. Oracle says the service is

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