TFH Volume: 28 Issue: 7 Archives

LUG Talks About IBM i Priorities

January 29, 2018 Alex Woodie

The Large User Group (LUG) held its first meeting of the year last week at the IBM lab in Rochester, Minnesota. While LUG members use the IBM i platform differently than your average mid-sized company, their experiences, concerns, and vision for the future of the platform are relevant to the community as a whole. We caught up with two LUG members last week to get the low down on the i tech.

The LUG is a private organization that keeps the identities of its members confidential. Because the overall IBM i ecosystem is relatively small, the LUG requested that IT …
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LightEdge Shops A “True Cloud” To IBM i Users

January 29, 2018 Dan Burger

IBM i-based cloud computing is not your average everyday IBM i environment. And it’s different from managed services that are sometimes called hosted services. True cloud – a term that’s being used to describe virtualized computing, storage, and networking available with utility-style flexible pricing – is still a rare sight with IBM i. But Roger Mellman knows where you can find one. He built it for LightEdge Solutions, a services provider with an edge on the typical managed service provider.

IBM first approached LightEdge five years ago about building an IBM i-based cloud, Mellman, the director of enterprise …
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Guru: Sorting In Teraspace

January 29, 2018 Jon Paris

In an earlier tip, Teraspace To The Rescue, I discussed how to use teraspace in RPG to permit the storage and manipulation of data that requires more storage than RPG’s 16MB limit. In this tip I am going to discuss how such data can be sorted. Hint: SORTA won’t work!

Before I get to that though, there is one thing I should mention. In that original tip I said: “For reasons I have never understood, DEALLOC will not null your pointer. So it is a good idea to do it yourself. . . .” IBM’s Barbara Morris pointed out, …
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IBM Winds Down Yet More Older Power Systems Features

January 29, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

It is amazing to me that IBM stops selling specific Power Systems and features in such a gradual and what looks like a haphazard fashion. It seems to take forever to kill off older product lines. It may be more a function of what supplies Big Blue has in the barn than with some kind of orderly, sensible withdrawal from marketing of prior generations of gear.

The upshot is that it is very hard to figure out what IBM is and is not selling, and when it will stop selling particular features. And because IBM does not usually provide the …
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Reader Feedback On IBM i Strategy: Technology Choices And The Vendor Ecosystem

January 29, 2018 Dan Burger

Hi Dan:

While Steve Will’s vision for 5 to 15 years out is encouraging and morale-building, it’s not a commitment to the i marketplace – it’s called a “statement of direction” for a reason! I’ll nod in agreement that it’s all good while hoping IBM delivers not only on AI but on enhanced “primitive” processes necessary to make AI useful, if not valuable.

AI is based on events, transactions, and business rules. Without the primitives — robust and high-performance database technology; extreme hardware/software platform stability; and programming technologies that support the development, testing, deployment, and maintenance of complex business rules …
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LUG Talks About IBM i Priorities

LightEdge Shops A “True Cloud” To IBM i Users

Guru: Sorting In Teraspace

IBM Winds Down Yet More Older Power Systems Features

Reader Feedback On IBM i Strategy: Technology Choices And The Vendor Ecosystem

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