• Guru: RPG’s New DATA-INTO

  June 18, 2018 Jon Paris

  In this tip I’m going to give a brief introduction to the latest addition to the RPG language. The new DATA-INTO op-code. DATA-INTO is IBM’s response to the oft-asked question: “When is IBM going to introduce JSON-INTO so we can process JSON as easily as XML?”

  DATA-INTO provides this capability, but IBM has very cleverly given it functionality that goes way beyond what a simple JSON-INTO op-code could ever have done. DATA-INTO is effectively a cross between XML-INTO and Open Access. Like XML-INTO it uses the names of items and their hierarchy to unpack the document into RPG variables. Like …

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• Mad Dog 21/21: Wounding Watson

  June 18, 2018 Hesh Wiener

  CEO Ginni Rometty is highly regarded inside and outside IBM. For instance, the Forbes ranking of female executives puts Rometty in the top ten. Moreover, gender and other qualifiers aside, Rometty is one of the world’s prominent business leaders. When she does well, the results are widely broadcast; when she slips up, however, so is criticism. In the spring of 2018, media reported big layoffs in the health related activities within IBM’s Watson collection of technologies. The buck stopped with Rometty, who was undoubtedly rattled; she will recover. Watson was wounded; the prognosis is uncertain.

  The Watson problem, an …

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• Raz-Lee Debuts Anti-Ransomware For IBM i

  June 18, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Despite its reputation as a secure digital fortress for back office automation, the IBM i server is subject to all manner of modern security threats. That includes ransomware, which can work its way onto mapped IFS drives and render business documents stored on the IBM i server useless. Raz-Lee Security recently launched a new solution aimed at combatting the spread of ransomware on IBM i.

  Today’s business environment rewards companies that embrace openness. Companies are encouraged to open up their mainframes and IBM i servers and leverage the data and business processes they contain using APIs, microservices, and modern user …

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• Winning The Platform War With IBM i

  June 13, 2018 Alex Woodie

  How much influence does the selection of a computer system have on a given company’s success? What about the success of all the companies that use that platform? Those are tough question, to be sure, and probably ones that graduate students could ponder on their way to getting an MBA. But according to IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will, who has a first-row seat to the platform wars, the proof of IBM i’s success is in the pudding.

  If you’re like most IBM i professionals, you get a little defensive when plans are made to migrate off the platform. You …

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• What HelpSystems Is Up To Now

  June 13, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Thanks to a slew of acquisitions, HelpSystems has become one the largest independent software vendors in the IBM i marketplace, with tools spanning operations, security, backup, high availability, forms management, and capacity planning. A company representative recent sat down with IT Jungle at the recent COMMON PowerUp conference to talk about what’s new.

  HelpSystems didn’t have a single major product launch at the COMMON conference in San Antonio, Texas, two weeks ago. Instead the company used the event to showcase multiple enhancements, and to talk about future products — such as a security information and event management (SIEM) solution and …

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• What Cloud Providers Must Do To Attract IBM i

  June 13, 2018 Lief Morin

  The cloud is a compelling platform for almost every business. It’s real, and it’s here to stay. There are many reasons cloud consumption models are attractive, starting with the big four: predictable payments and cost savings, consistency of service, almost unlimited elasticity and access to advanced services and personnel. These are the benefits that cloud service providers have emphasized most as clients try to understand how cloud services might work best in their enterprise.

  The real benefits of the cloud, however, go far beyond these three things. As the cloud matures and service providers’ offerings blur into each other, they …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, June 13

  June 13, 2018 Dan Burger

  Our summer publishing schedule has prevented us from catching you up on what’s been going on around the IBM i ecosystem of late, but we always have our eye on the community for you. As you will note in our Top Stories below, Big Blue has been especially busy in many different tech arenas and around the globe.

  Top Stories From Outside The Jungle

  (The Motley Fool) CEO Ginni Rometty declares IBM’s new AI Supercomputer one of Big Blue’s greatest achievements as Summit makes its debut.

  (ZDNet) The clouds are rolling in as IBM creates 18 new “availability zones” in …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 23

  June 13, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  Here we are, back in the Wednesday issue of The Four Hundred where we belong, with the latest updates to the comings and goings of PTF patches for the IBM i platform.

  There is a new flight recorder for troubleshooting optical problems – OPT devices, including RDX attached – for IBM i 7.2 and 7.1. Check this link out if you are running any of these. It is a handy thing to know about.

  When ordering Cumulative PTF group(s), the DB and HIPER PTFs are included if the order is for your current release. If it is for a release …

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• IBM Hikes Memory Prices On Power8 And Power9 Iron

  June 11, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It is a problem that all server makers are facing: Raw DRAM and flash memory prices have been rising for the past year and a half, yet they are loath to raise their own prices because such rude spikes will actually curtail demand for servers given the sizes of the slices of the server cost pie that main memory and now flash memory comprise. When memory prices started rising at the end of 2016, most people thought it would not last for more than a few quarters, but the DRAM and flash makers are happy to make more dough doing …

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• Profound Logic Shows Off Innovation At PowerUp

  June 11, 2018 Alex Woodie

  The recent COMMON PowerUp 18 conference was a tour de force for Profound Logic, which not only showcased major enhancements to its flagship Web and mobile development tool for IBM i, Profound UI, but also swept the IBM Innovation Awards with two customer success stories.

  Let’s start with the Innovation Awards. Every year, IBM and COMMON highlight the innovative work that two companies do with their IBM i systems, including first and second place. While IBM i modernization vendors are usually well-represented in the nominations and eventual winners, we’ve never seen clients of the same modernization vendor take both first …

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