Zero tolerance for AIX. It’s an exaggeration, but not that much of an exaggeration within the IBM midrange community. There is a small amount of tolerance. And where there is tolerance, the seeds of open source have an opportunity to sprout and grow. PHP has shown that open source can be accepted as a viable application development environment. Ruby, Python, and Node.js are relatively new to the platform and are trying to gain a foothold. Now get ready for open source .NET.

Don’t expect IBM to drop .NET on your doorstep next week, next month, or next year. But it’s

Many of us have been in this community for a long time, and whether or not we mean to, some of us still call our platform the AS/400, or “the four hundred,” or even the iSeries because old habits die hard. Call it what you will, but this is still a community, and it is one that we are members of and, for the most part, one we are all proud to be members. I, for one, wish that we had a better sense of the breadth and depth of this community, something a bit more than just the results

If your company is like most IBM i shops, the system is a critical part of your daily business. Whether you are packing consumer goods, reconciling bank statements, or delivering medical care, chances are the IBM i server plays a central role. But all too often, getting a single view into the state of the machine is difficult to achieve. That is what drove HelpSystems to release a consolidated operations dashboard with performance drill-down capabilities.

The new operations dashboard that HelpSystems has unveiled allows users to monitor the state of their IBM i servers from the comfort of a mobile

There is a Biblical parable in the gospel according to Matthew that touches upon labor relations. As the story goes, a vineyard owner sends his foreman out to hire laborers at daybreak. They agree upon a wage–one denarius in this instance–and off they go to toil in the soil. (“Toiling” is the biblically preferred term for work.) But the foreman goes out several more times throughout the day and hires additional men, telling them simply that they will be paid “whatever is right.” Apparently, they needed work more than clarity about wages, so off they went to join the daybreak

R2D2? That little dome-headed droid that always kept the Star Wars heroes one step ahead of big trouble? Well, not exactly. The one we’re talking about doesn’t roll around, nor does he chirp. But, unlike the movie version, ours is real. He lives inside your IBM i server and he spends his life keeping you out of trouble. . . with never so much as a thank you from his owner.

It’s time he got a little respect, because he works day and night; not only “off the books” but entirely off your payroll. Nevertheless, he’s the best system administrator