• The Five Things Clouds Need To Deliver For IBM i

  May 15, 2017 Lief Morin

  The cloud is compelling and real and here to stay – and to accelerate. On the surface, cloud consumption models are primarily attractive because they deliver simplicity of payment, consistency of service, and lastly, elasticity. These are the highly touted benefits of cloud services promoted to clients as they seek to understand how cloud services might be consumed in their enterprises.

  But, the real benefits are much more tangible than those. All cloud organizations must now offer something beyond those capabilities. They must offer regulatory and security compliance, inherent resiliency, and consolidation of expertise to enable clients to focus on …

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• Reporter’s Notebook: COMMON Spring 2017

  May 10, 2017 Alex Woodie

  Harry Potter sightings remain at an abnormally high level here at the COMMON conference, which is taking place in the heart of Universal Orlando. The young wizard appears to be everywhere – in sessions, by the pool, at the Expo, buying raffle tickets. But it’s left some wondering: Can he program in ILE?

  The COMMON conference wraps up today after a four-day run here at the brand-spanking-new Lowes Sapphire Falls Resort. The site has mostly lived up to the expectations of COMMON’s management, who booked the event before the massive construction project was even finished. You just can’t fake that …

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• IBM i Vendors Seeking ‘Meaningful Exits’ Have Options

  May 10, 2017 Alex Woodie

  Skills depletion within the IBM i community has been well documented on these pages in issues past. Another side effect of working on an older computer platform is the aging of the software vendor community itself. As the baby boomer owners approach retirement age, a handful of industry consolidators are eager to give the software companies they created good homes.

  One of the most active vendors in the IBM i community over the past few years is Fresche Solutions. The Montreal, Quebec-based company was known as Speedware back in 2012 when it bought a German RPG migration tool company …

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• Profound Digs Deeper Into Node.js

  May 10, 2017 Dan Burger

  All things considered, most IBM i shops would prefer to retain and enhance their investments in a stable, secure and proven system than accept the risk and expense of rewriting applications in another language or migrating from the platform. And why not? The IBM i is a modern business computing system capable of handling sought after technologies such as mobile, analytics, open source and cognitive.

  For companies aiming to enhance their IBM i environments, Profound Logic Software has just released Profound.js 2.0, a methodology for enhancing applications that uses a combination of Node.js and RPG in an agile development environment. …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, May 10

  May 10, 2017 Dan Burger

  Why would anyone want to move on-premise IBM i infrastructure to the cloud? Utility pricing, moving a development environment off the production server, and establishing a disaster recovery plan are a few things that come to mind.

  This edition of Monitor also includes articles on the top CIO challenges (business and IT alignment is a big one) and the nightmares brought on by H1-B visa program. You’ll also find useful resources and a calendar of events that includes tech conferences and local user group meeting agendas. If you are not a member of a local user group, you’re missing out …

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• IBM I PTF Guide, Volume 19, Number 18

  May 10, 2017 Doug Bidwell

  This week in PTFs is all about HIPERs, Security, and Hardware patches. For the HIPERs, the biggie is excessive VLOGing fixes, plan cache tweaks, and cloud-init open source issues have been fixed. On the security front, there is a PTF that corrects RFC 2328 ambiguities and vulnerabilities.

  As for the hardware patches, there are a bunch, including:

  • MF63396 – Slider SES Firmware: 4170
  • Improved error handling during SES FW updates to prevent
  • possible device errors, such as SRCxxxx3002. Enhancements to connector Fault LED functionality
  • Diagnostic improvements for expander to power supply communication and failure detection
  • Improved error handling and reporting

  …

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• Watson Puts On A Show At COMMON

  May 8, 2017 Dan Burger

  Watson, the anthropomorphic face of IBM cognitive computing, is used to being on the big stage. Fame came quickly and easily with the TV quiz show Jeopardy! Then there was recognition for work in cancer research and fighting cybercrime. IBM has invited Watson to all its major conferences and even changed the name, and some of the focus, of its Power Systems group into the Cognitive Systems business unit.

  Yesterday, Watson showed up at the COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition, the world’s largest gathering of IBM i professionals. The first impression was a good one. It emphasized easy integration …

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• IBM Brings Cloud Management In-House with New Console

  May 8, 2017 Alex Woodie

  Don’t be surprised to see the cloud seeping into your data center, because it’s all part of IBM’s plan. Yesterday during the COMMON Opening Session in Orlando, Florida, IBM executives gave the IBM i faithful a preview of a new Cloud Management Console that’s designed to enable customers to monitor and (eventually) manage their Power Systems environments from the comfort of the cloud.

  Steve Sibley, IBM‘s director of worldwide product management for IBM’s Power Systems line, gave IT Jungle a preview of the new Cloud Management Console, which was expected to be one of three products announcements he planned …

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• Guru: The Three Ways to Insert

  May 8, 2017 Ted Holt

  The INSERT statement is THE (as in the only) SQL way to add new data to a relational database table. At the risk of sounding like a GEICO commercial, “Everybody knows that.” Well, did you know that the INSERT statement supports three distinct ways to add new rows to a table?

  To illustrate the three forms of INSERT, imagine that you and I work for a small company that stores goods in, and ships goods from, a warehouse. Since the company has only one warehouse, there has never been a need for a warehouse ID column in any of …

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• COMMON Opening Session Highlights Excellence

  May 8, 2017 Dan Burger

  IBM i innovation and community service were singled out during the opening session of the COMMON Annual Meeting and Expo, which opened yesterday and continues through Wednesday in Orlando, Florida. Anan Ayyad, a recent graduate of Purdue University Northwest was the top student innovator for his work on an automotive data acquisition system. The Grand Rapids, Michigan, Association of Realtors received the Innovation Award for a modernization of its website that included WordPress running on IBM i and open source development in conjunction with RPG.

  COMMON president Jeff Carey and IBM Cognitive Systems executives Stephanie Chiras and Steve Sibley presented …

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