TFH Volume: 28 Issue: 56 Archives

HelpSystems Nabs MPG for Performance Management

August 27, 2018 Alex Woodie

Midrange Performance Group, the Boulder, Colorado-based provider of capacity and performance management software for IBM i, is the latest software vendor to call it quits and join up with HelpSystems. It was HelpSystems first acquisition of the year and 20th since 2006.

For decades, Midrange Performance Group, (MPG) has been one of the most trusted names when it comes to capacity planning and performance management for IBM i and the midrange servers that preceded it. If you want to know how your workload would run on a new Power Systems server from IBM, then you could find out using …
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In Memory Of Dan Burger

August 27, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

When in heaven do you start, when it has been two decades of sharing work and life together, as comrades in arms, as confidants, as companions in the heroic sense of that word?

You can start by saying that without Dan Burger, there never would have been an IT Jungle.

After an unexpected, brief, and intense illness, Dan passed away on August 19, to the great shock to all of us here at IT Jungle and to the people who knew Dan and know that he is gone. Dan was part of many communities, and the IBM i community was …
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Guru: Refactoring RPG – GOTO

August 27, 2018 Ted Holt

When I first learned COBOL, I coded loops the way all the programmers in my shop did — with GO TO. Paragraph names were labels, not routines. Then I took a class in COBOL and learned structured programming. I’ve never looked back. I wish other people felt the same way, because I don’t like to work on GOTO-laden programs.

Injudicious use of branching — in RPG that would be the GOTO and CABxx op codes — is a major reason I refactor. GOTO plays havoc with program “logic”, a word I hesitate to use in this context. The minute someone …
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Mad Dog 21/21: Boiling Points

August 27, 2018 Hesh Wiener

A three-minute egg cooks consistently most anywhere near sea level; boiling that egg will take longer up in the Himalayas. Water, like just about every other pure liquid, has at any particular atmospheric pressure a consistent boiling point. At sea level, water boils at 100 degrees Celsius; it can get no hotter. Similarly, IBM apparently cannot grow beyond $100 billion in annual revenue. Lately, its business vaporizes at a somewhat lower point, about $80 billion, like water on Mount Everest. Whenever the company adds revenue here it manages to lose it there.

The boiling point of water is a …
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More Withdrawals For Vintage Power Gear

August 27, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

In with the new and out with the old, as the adage goes. With the Power9 line of Power Systems machines all out and for the most part available – with the exception of the high end Power E980 that will be available in stages in September and November – it is time to start winding down more of the older stuff.

In announcement letter 918-097, IBM started to remove more things from the product catalog. The most important one in this round will happen on October 19, and that is when companies will no longer be able to …
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HelpSystems Nabs MPG for Performance Management

In Memory Of Dan Burger

Guru: Refactoring RPG – GOTO

Mad Dog 21/21: Boiling Points

More Withdrawals For Vintage Power Gear

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