• Hadoop and IBM i: Not As Far Apart As One Might Think

  May 20, 2015 Alex Woodie

  The worlds of IBM i and Apache Hadoop appear to be diametrically opposed. One is a proprietary, RISC-based platform used primarily to run transactional systems. The other is an open source, X86-based platform used primarily for big data analytics. But as far apart as the two platforms seem to be, at least one IBM i software vendor, mrc, is aiming to find some common ground between them. Hadoop is a distributed data storage and processing framework that engineers and researchers at Yahoo and Google are credited with helping to create. While indexing the Internet was Hadoop’s first use case,

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• Shield Goes Lean and Mean with HA Software

  May 20, 2015 Alex Woodie

  Shield Advanced Solutions is shipping a new release of its IBM i high availability software that weighs significantly less than previous releases, and should consume fewer resources as well, thereby boosting performance. The HA audit and role swap processes were also enhanced with HA4i version 7.2, and the user interface also saw some improvements. IBM remote journaling, which forms the basis for the majority of HA products on the market, is a fantastic technology, as it moves the replication of database files underneath the operating system layer, and in the process makes it nearly foolproof to use. But the flipside

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• ARCAD Release Management Fits With UrbanCode DevOps

  May 20, 2015 Dan Burger

  IBM‘s midrange computers and the applications they run never seem to get the recognition they deserve when it comes to advanced technologies and methodologies. It’s not exactly stealing intellectual property, but it is dishonest to represent “new” ideas as if they were freshly hatched. DevOps is a good example. It’s a hot idea, but it also shares a lot of methodology with the IBM i and its predecessors, the iSeries and AS/400. At the heart of DevOps is the change process and adding agility and speed to that process. “It is not new in our field when you think

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• Kisco Rolls with 2FA, Revs Network Security Tool

  May 20, 2015 Alex Woodie

  Data security isn’t just nice to have–it’s the law in most industries. One of the best ways to keep unauthorized users from snooping where their snouts don’t belong is two-factor authentication (2FA), which requires users to have two pieces of identifying credentials before being granted entry. A new 2FA solution for IBM i was launched recently by Kisco Information Systems, which also updated its exit point monitoring program for IBM i. Kisco’s 2FA solution, called i2Pass, puts a roadblock in front of attempts to access IBM i assets. If the users have the correct credentials–which is the combination of

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• BCD Tweaks Web Dev Tools. . . Focal Point Updates DR FlashCopy. . . Boadway Puts IBM i Performance Data on the Cloud. . .

  May 20, 2015 Alex Woodie

  Rounding out our IT Jungle coverage of the recent COMMON conference held at Disneyland last month, we bring you product news from three IBM i software companies focusing on Web development and modernization, hosted high availability and disaster recovery, and IBM i performance tuning. BCD Tweaks Web Dev Tools by Alex Woodie BCD Software used the recent COMMON conference as a launch pad for new releases of two key Web development tools: Presto 6.1 and WebSmart 10.8. BCD ships two editions of WebSmart, including ILE RPG and PHP editions, but the features in version 10.8 focus mainly (though not entirely)

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• Is There No Midrange In The IBM i Midrange?

  May 18, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As we reported in last week’s issue, IBM has indeed launched the four-socket Power E850 server that has Power8 engines. They run AIX. And of course they run Linux. The have support for the PowerVM hypervisor and they do not require the PowerKVM hypervisor that only supports Linux. The one thing that they do not support is the IBM i operating system and integrated database. This is a remarkable moment in the history of the IBM midrange, and it is perhaps one that reflects the reality of the IBM i market or one that shows IBM is, once again, giving

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• State of IBM i Security? Still Horrible, After All These Years

  May 18, 2015 Alex Woodie

  When you talk to IBM about the IBM i-on-Power platform, the word “security” is used extensively, and appears frequently next to other power words like “reliability” and “availability.” But when you talk to the security software vendor PowerTech about the state of IBM i security, you might be surprised to hear words like “wide open” and “breach fatigue.” Then again, if you have been an IT Jungle reader for very long, you may not. Last month, PowerTech released its 12th annual State of IBM i Security Study. The 25-page report, which you can download from the company’s website,

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• Mobile Access To IBM i Makes The Grade

  May 18, 2015 Dan Burger

  When a Technology Refresh gets rolled out, we find all sorts of things rolled in. Some of the items, like those picked by IBM execs Steve Will and Alison Butterill two weeks ago in an IT Jungle story, are the front runners for most valuable enhancements. But the list goes on and opinions vary. Tim Rowe puts the addition of mobile support for IBM i Access for the Web, SQL services, and new REST-based Web services at the top of the list. A big part of the IBM i reputation is its easy access to its file system, to printers

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• Mad Dog 21/21: Not As Big Blue

  May 18, 2015 Hesh Wiener

  In 2011, IBM‘s revenue exceeded $106 billion. Every year since, the company’s intake has fallen, sliding 10 percent to under $95 billion by 2014. Analysts at investment bank Credit Suisse predict IBM’s 2015 revenue will drop another 9 percent to $86 billion. The CS analysts believe IBM’s revenue will dwindle to $81.6 billion by 2018. Despite this, most investors are hanging tough. The same cannot be said of IBM’s customers, who are impressed by superior systems engineering not clever financial engineering; they understandably see IBM’s failures in the server business as a danger. In 2014, according to IDC,

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• IBM i Shops Running Oracle JDE Consider MSPs And Migration

  May 18, 2015 Dan Burger

  GSI is an application and technology consulting company specializing in helping companies that run JD Edwards ERP software. As IBM i history buffs know, JD Edwards software solely ran on IBM midrange systems back in the day. An estimated 25 percent run on IBM i today, which still means hundreds of i shops find themselves caught between a rock (IBM) and a hard place (Oracle). And let’s say GSI is a company trying to ease the pain. When GSI began its JD Edwards support business in 2004, 90 percent of its customers ran IBM AS/400s (later

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