• Some Practical Advice On That HMC-Power9 Impedance Mismatch

  March 1, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In any modern IT infrastructure – be it compute, storage, or networking – there is an increasing architectural movement to break control planes from the compute, storage, or networking planes. In this sense, the Hardware Management Console, which people have been complaining about since it was launched so long ago we can’t even remember it.

  The HMC debuted as an external controller for system configuration and logical partition configuration with the Power5-based “Squadron” line of servers running OS/400 back in 2004, including the Power 520 and the Power 570 as well as the Power 575, Power 590, and Power 595 …

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• IBM Extends Dynamic Capacity Pricing Scheme To Its Cloud

  February 24, 2021 Alex Woodie

  What if you could buy computer processing credits from a systems vendor and use the credits to run workloads on your on-premise server or in the vendor’s cloud? Better yet, what if the vendor was IBM and the workloads were IBM i applications? Because that is essentially the hybrid computing pricing structure that IBM unveiled yesterday as part of its latest Power Systems announcements.

  The new hybrid pricing option is an extension of the so-called Dynamic Capacity pricing scheme that IBM unveiled through its Power Private Cloud offering, which IBM launched in May 2020. As part of that offering, …

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• Here’s What You Should Do About The IBM i Skills Shortage

  February 24, 2021 Jason Hardy

  A shrinking IBM i talent pool has been a major concern for years.

  Back in 2015, dwindling access to IBM i professionals was blamed by IBM’s own top brass on revenue shortfalls. A system that had been around for nearly three decades, it was only a matter of time until the veterans left for greener pastures. The problem was, and continues to be, that fewer young professionals have been eager to master the same set of skills.

  According to the latest data, not only is the IBM talent shortage getting worse by the year – it’s aggravating a set of …

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• Matillion Founder Recounts Midrange Roots

  February 24, 2021 Alex Woodie

  In the mad rush to build data warehouses in the cloud, there’s one group that’s doing surprisingly well: ETL tool providers. Despite the sophistication of today’s AI and analytic endeavors, ETL tools are a critical link in the chain to the cloud. And one of the up-and-coming vendors in this space is Matillion, which last week raised $100 million in venture capital.

  Matillion was founded in 2011 to help companies build cloud data warehouses. The Anglo-American firm developed expertise in taking companies’ corporate data from on-premise systems and building data warehouse on emerging cloud systems, such as Amazon Web Services’ …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, February 24

  February 24, 2021 Jenny Thomas

  Seeking feedback isn’t always a joyous task. With feedback can come criticism, which can lead to hurt feelings. But it can also point us in new directions that lead to better services and products and result in improvements that might not have been part of the original plan. These are just some of the reasons we encourage all of you to use your voice when it comes to the IBM i to help make positive gains for our whole ecosystem. One of the easiest ways to be heard is to take surveys and help companies who are seeking feedback. You’ll …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 8

  February 24, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  Welcome to this week’s edition of the IBM i PTF Guide. Right off the bat, there are SMTP recommended fixes for IBM i 7.4, IBM i 7.3, and IBM i 7.2. Use recommended fixes link in the guide for your appropriate release.

  Otherwise, there ain’t much going on. Which is often a good thing.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level:

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • MGTools

  PTF Groups 7.3:

  • MGTools

  PTF Groups 7.2:

  • MGTools

  PTF Groups 7.1:

  • Nothing here, as often happens.

  New (or Updated) Links for this week:

  • Optical: IBM i Removable Media: Optical

  …

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• iTech Solutions Keeps You In The Know With VERIFi

  February 22, 2021 Alex Woodie

  “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” That time-tested bit of advice from Ben Franklin has many applications, including, it turns out, IBM i systems management. And through its new VERIFi offering, iTech Solutions is set to provide many ounces of prevention by keeping customers on top of what is happening with their IBM i servers.

  iTech Solutions’ VERIFi comes in three flavors. With VERIFi Weekly Status Reporting, the company remotely monitors key aspects of IBM i server health and summarize those findings in a PDF sent once a week for $295 per year. It offers …

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• Tech Data’s Take On Certified Pre-Owned IT Gear

  February 22, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It may be ironic, but even the largest sellers of new datacenter equipment in the world sometimes have to – and eagerly want to – sell used IT equipment. And if they are smart – and the executives at Tech Data certainly are on behalf of their downstream reseller and end user customers – they stick to certified pre-owned equipment with the backing of the original equipment manufacturers.

  When Tech Data was founded in Clearwater, Florida by Edward Raymond in 1974, the company sold various peripherals and supplies for minicomputer and mainframe systems. The company branched out into PC distribution …

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• Guru: Prompting Stored Procedures

  February 22, 2021 Paul Tuohy

  In this tip I would like to touch on two items, in relation to stored procedures, that may have escaped your notice: prompting stored procedures and/or parameters (in Run SQL Scripts) and passing parameters by name.

  I must admit that, as I have gotten older, my ability to remember the names and parameters for stored procedures has, shall we say, decreased. At this stage, I am lucky if I can remember which library/schema one of my stored procedures is in!

  A case in point. I recently received an e-mail about a stored procedure I had written about (back in 2015) …

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• As I See It: Sunshine Or Oxygen?

  February 22, 2021 Victor Rozek

  There is an intense debate within the print and electronic media about the future of the 1st Amendment. At core is the question: At what point does free speech become antithetical to a free society? And what, if anything, should be done about it?

  The answers to these questions call for great nuance and even greater caution. Is it even possible to fine-tune one of the foundational principles of our Democracy, while simultaneously preserving it? When does enthusiasm become incitement? What’s true and what’s false? What constitutes ignorance versus willful manipulation? What’s the dividing line between news and propaganda? And …

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