• Budget Relief For IBM i Monitoring Software

  March 14, 2018 Dan Burger

  Keeping it simple isn’t always so simple. But creating efficiency at a low cost without adding layers of complexity and extra features (often unused) is a product attribute that gets a lot of attention. A good example of this is Kisco Information Systems’ event monitoring software: iEventMonitor.

  Kisco just released Release 3 of iEventMonitor, a tool that monitors prominent IBM i job and message queues plus storage and CPU. It sends out alerts when things go astray. Because of its simplicity the price of iEventMonitor R3 is just $495 for a single LPAR or $795 for an unlimited number of …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 14

  March 14, 2018 Dan Burger

  What does your IT budget say about your organization? Are you a comfortable fit in the status quo or are you budgeting for the future knowing that status quo and a one-dollar bill won’t even get you a cup of coffee?

  And if your vision of the IT future includes open source, start gathering information by reading articles linked to Monitor. This week we have advice on setting up an open source project office and a comparison of the top two containers for transporting applications between systems. IBM’s Watson CTO also talks about AI ethics and responsibility.

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 10

  March 14, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  The good times keep on rolling with the Spectre Meltdown (SM) updates. There are new HIPER and Security Groups this week, and most of the required PTFs are on one group or the other, except for one in each release. If you need to tackle it this week, the recommendation is to apply both the HIPER and Security groups, plus the one additional fix, for each release.

  Depending on your system and its proc/mem configuration, it will take from 15 minutes to 30 minutes longer to apply the Tech Refresh.

  MQ for IBM i also has a new Group level …

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• HelpSystems Has A New Number One Investor

  March 12, 2018 Alex Woodie

  A controlling stake in HelpSystems is set to be sold to HGGC, a Silicon Valley private equity firm with $4.3 billion in assets. The deal, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of the month, was presented as a recapitalization of HelpSystems and a ratification of its on-going strategy to grow the business through acquisitions and organic growth.

  The deal will keep current owners of HelpSystems – including H.I.G. Capital, Split Rock Partners, the software company’s management team, and employees of HelpSystems – on board as owners under the company’s new shareholder structure. HGGC‘s piece …

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• The Performance Impact Of Spectre And Meltdown

  March 12, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We have been waiting to see what impact on performance the Spectre and Meltdown speculative execution patches, which plug some security vulnerability holes that search engine giant Google discovered last summer and made public in early January, would have on Power Systems iron running the IBM i operating system.

  Now that Big Blue has published the first edition of the Power Systems Performance Report that includes the new “ZZ” Power 9-based systems, we not only get a sense of the relative performance of the “Nimbus” Power9 chip for entry servers. We also can figure out the performance impact of the …

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• Guru: Use SQL To Find Duplicate Source Code

  March 12, 2018 Ted Holt

  According to Brian Tracy, “good habits are hard to develop but easy to live with; bad habits are easy to develop but hard to live with. The habits you have and the habits that have you will determine almost everything you achieve or fail to achieve.” This is as true in programming as in anything else we may do.

  Unfortunately, even those of us who strive for good work habits often have to follow the work of people who did not. One bad habit I come across occasionally is known in software engineering as WET solutions. WET stands for “write …

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• As I See It: Homo Digitalis

  March 12, 2018 Victor Rozek

  The African continent, perhaps more than any other, has been blessed with abundant resources and cursed by relentless exploitation. From ivory to slavery, oil to diamonds, foreign powers rushed in to strip the continent of its wealth. Over the last three centuries, arguably not a single African nation escaped some form of colonialism.

  The first wave of exploitation was decidedly European. Germany, England, France, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, and Italy carved up the continent. America was the central buyer in the slave trade, and remained to become the principal seller in the arms trade. Today, the United States maintains a military …

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• Proprietary Innovation: An IBM i Ace In The Hole

  March 12, 2018 Dan Burger

  You may know a business executive who has been thrown off balance by the overwhelmingly positive reports of the superior technical advantages of startups compared to legacy businesses that have invested in modernizing or refactoring their existing systems. Well, consider that startup advantage to be a snowball in Phoenix. Organizations with the best opportunities to be powerful within their market segments are the ones that are smart about leveraging their data and increasing the skills of their employees.

  Remember this term: proprietary innovation. Just when you thought proprietary and innovation would never appear in the same sentence, get ready to …

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• Squeeze Your ERP A Little Harder Before Ditching It

  March 7, 2018 Alex Woodie

  The pressure to migrate to newer ERP systems and cloud-based applications can be heavy, particularly if you’re using perceived “legacy” platforms like the IBM i server. However, the urge to replace one technology with another should be resisted, especially if your business challenges aren’t rooted in technology.

  That’s the gist of a conversation with Eric Kimberling, the founder and managing director of Panorama Consulting Solutions, which functions as a neutral third-party adviser for customers’ ERP-related decisions. Panorama recently published a report poking holes in the widely held notion that newer ERP and cloud systems are better for business.

  “First …

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• Domino Users: Can You Hear Me Now?

  March 7, 2018 Dan Burger

  IBM Domino/Notes users finally seem to be getting attention. They’ve only been screaming and pounding on the wall for five or six years, so it’s about time they’re being heard. IBM pretty much forgot about them and things only got better since IBM handed over the development and marketing chores to a company called HCL Technologies. What a difference that made.

  During a webcast last week, the tone was noticeably upbeat. Progress on the development side, investments on the financial side, and a passion for reviving a product line at the end of its rope were on display. There’s a …

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