As anyone who has a past experience with multiple long-term relationships or more than one child will tell you, comparisons are odious. But when we are shopping for infrastructure or searching for a mate or figuring out which kid is going to get what when you finally shuffle off the mortal coil, you can’t help but make comparisons. And even after you’ve made your choice, you keep looking to make sure you are getting a good deal. If you are a Power Systems shop running either IBM i or AIX, you are just not getting as good of a deal

Even if you are not onboard with database modernization, IBM is moving forward and expecting that sooner or later the majority of the IBM i customer base will fathom the SQL/DDL emphasis that goes into DB2 for i. With the Technology Refresh 4 update that has just come warm out of the oven, the database enhancements that baked into TR4 include a little bit for everyone. That is, everyone who no longer hangs on to the traditional DB2/400 way of doing things.

Traditions are nice for holidays and family reunions. And they can sometimes serve you well in the IT

IBM i shops are still failing to enact basic security safeguards to prevent unauthorized access of the data in their systems, according to PowerTech, which issued its annual State of IBM i Security report this month. Even when it comes to basic security concepts, like changing default passwords, minimizing user permissions, and monitoring exit points, the average IBM i shop fails spectacularly. The upshot is that most shops are gambling with their data, with a heavy bet placed on “security through obscurity.”

If it was a video conference, PowerTech director of security technologies Robin Tatam would have been seen

A friend of mine was having relationship troubles. His girlfriend complained that he seemed incapable of going “deeper,” meaning he was resistant to the level of commitment she craved–a lament many women will no doubt recognize. From his perspective, he didn’t want heavy commitment, he wanted light companionship. He had a variety of interests, enjoyed doing a great many things, and wanted someone to share them with. Of course, one of his interests was sex, and therein, if you’ll pardon the expression, lies the rub. Essentially, he wanted a woman in his life, but not in his house. And things

High availability software maker Maxava says that more and more IBM i shops are getting savvy about protecting their critical application and data assets, and this is boosting the company’s sales as well as sales of new Power Systems iron running the IBM i operating system. This is good for the IBM i ecosystem and is a reflection of the fact that high availability cluster has always been one of the dominant drivers of server sales in the IBM midrange.

Maxava says that new customer business–as opposed to maintenance and licensing from its existing customer base–was up 30 percent in

Boy, IBM sure seems hot to move its almost-top-end Power 770 servers these days. The company has two deals in the works, and it last week jacked up the trade-in credits on one deal while it at the same time backed off a little bit on the sweetener for another deal that went dormant at the end of March but which was revived two weeks ago.

IBM has been offering trade-in credits to customers who move from older Power-based servers or competitive Unix or proprietary machines made by Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, and Fujitsu to new Power7-based machines for so

Jim Buck, Aaron Bartell, and Scott Klement have been added to the IBM Champions for Power System club in recognition of their efforts to help build awareness of the IBM i platform and RPG. The selections were made by IBM and were based on contributions to and impact on the Power Systems community.

Buck, Bartell, and Klement are standout performers in the IBM i community. They are well-known advocates for the IBM i platform and they are joining the seven who were named champions last fall–Trevor Perry, Jon Paris, Susan Gantner, Pete Massiello, David Gibbs, Roxanne Reynolds-Lair, and Brian May.

Like the flocking of birds and the schooling of fish, the COMMON user group continues to illustrate the rule of thumb that there is safety in numbers. Being part of a community, whether it revolves around IBM i or Power Systems or beer drinking and the telling of preposterous tales is social education, entertainment, and an important link to others who belong to your same tribe. Most people enjoy being with like-thinkers, even though there are often times when it seems we are less alike than previously thought.

Over the years, COMMON has been the community center where group activities,

If you have been shopping for stuff online in the past several years, you know that the cost of shipping things has gone through the roof. And IBM is well aware of this too, and is not about to absorb the shipping costs on Power Systems gear when its peers in the server racket charge for shipping and handling.

To that end, in announcement letter 112-066 and in a further clarification in announcement letter 212-239, IBM explained that staring on July 10, it will be adding shipping and handling features to selected Power Systems equipment.

The shipping and handling

Despite uncertain economic times in most industries, IT related or not, there’s at least one group that’s got a reason to smile. According to a recent report from the analysts at Gartner, the worldwide supply chain management software market grew 12.3 percent in 2011, totaling out at a whopping $7.7 billion.

Just two years ago, IT Jungle reported on slumping sales in SCM software revenue, which hit a mere $6.2 billion in 2009. The jump in 2011 is actually the second year of double-digit growth for the SCM software market.

There wasn’t any shuffling for position amongst the top