• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 39

  October 3, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  Readers of IT Jungle already know what’s been happening in the IBM i ecosystem, so let’s take a look at what’s new in PTF Land this week. As we all know, IBM i 6.1 extended support ended on September 30, but post life cycle options are now available so contact your next level of support for further information. ECS also has new recommended fixes for both 7.3 and 7.2, so please check the link in our guide for details. We did not get any new defectives for the week of September 29, but here is the rundown on the last …

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• The NUMA NUMA [Song] Tax

  October 1, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When you have a wafer of chips, at least in theory all of the transistors cost the same on the wafer. But sometimes, when transistors perform certain functions, they are worth more. And in some cases, such as the electronics that enable the coupling of multiple cores on a die across a shared L3 cache or that allow the ganging up of processors across multiple sockets that allows for larger and shared main memory for applications to run in, those circuits are worth a lot more.

  This lashing together of compute components across shared memories – Non-Uniform Cache Access, or …

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• Can ERP Vendors Deliver On Industry 4.0 Expectations?

  October 1, 2018 Alex Woodie

  In the IT business, innovation is king. If you fail to keep up, you run the risk of falling behind and becoming stale. There’s where ERP as a product category found itself thanks to the advent of cloud computing, and now we’re on the cusp of finding out if the ERP market can deliver on the next set of emerging capabilities — machine learning, artificial intelligence, and IoT – which industry watchers have termed Industry 4.0.

  We’re at an interesting inflection point in enterprise software at the moment, in particular how well-established players react to rapid technological innovation. In the …

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• Guru: The Binding Directory Is The Key

  October 1, 2018 Ted Holt

  Hey, Ted:

  We license a software package to handle email on our IBM i system. When I write an RPG program that uses those routines, I can’t compile with the usual Create Bound RPG Program (CRTBNDRPG) command. Instead I have to use a two-step process — Create RPG Module (CRTRPGMOD) followed by Create Program (CRTPGM). Can you explain why this is? Even better, can you tell me if there is a way that I’m not aware of to compile with CRTBNDRPG?

  — David

  David continued, “I use CRTBNDCL and CRTBNDRPG, as they get me what I need, otherwise I am …

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• Advice For The IBM i Shop Buying X86 Servers

  October 1, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We spend a lot of time at The Four Hundred talking about the Power Systems servers and the IBM i platform, but it we also keep a keen eye on what is going on in the rest of the IT world, particularly when it comes to alternative server hardware and transaction processing and data analytics platforms. There are many, many ways to skin the cats that are the backbone of the business.

  Ok, so that was a bad metaphor. It happens. Like a line of bad code.

  Anyway, it is not lost on us that somewhere around 95 percent of …

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• The Herculean Task Of Applying Spectre/Meltdown Patches

  October 1, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The Spectre and Meltdown speculative execution vulnerabilities are, as our resident chief technology officer and author of the weekly IBM i PTF Guide, Doug Bidwell, is fond of saying, the gift that just keeps on giving.

  We had the shock of finding out in January that there were vulnerabilities in all processor architectures that use speculative execution in their instruction chewing engines – that means all existing processors, by the way. There are none that do not use this very useful architectural feature. And then we had the wait to see what the industry would do to patch these …

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• The Next Performance of Dawn May

  September 26, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Growing up on a farm in southern Minnesota, Dawn May had dreams of moving to the big city. But life has a funny way of changing the best laid plans, and May ended up spending decades working at IBM’s lab in nearby Rochester. After retiring from Big Blue earlier this year, May is set to start the next phase of her career as an independent consultant.

  May moved out of Rochester in 2011, but even then, she never expected to stay in southern Minnesota for so long. “As a farm girl, I always wanted to move away and become a …

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• Trimble Gives IBM i Trucking App Some Love

  September 26, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Trucking companies that rely on the Innovative IES application from Trimble have a series of new enhancements to work with, including new options for paying drivers, a redesigned risk management app, and a new routing module that gives drivers turn-by-turn directions.

  It’s been more than six years since Trimble acquired TMW Systems in a $335-million deal that netted it a handful of transportation management system (TMS) suites, including the TL2000 and IES dispatching applications for IBM i and TMWSuite for Windows, among several other products.

  Since then, the publicly traded company, which develops all manner of geospatial products for positioning, …

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• Infor Makes Mobile, Cloud, IoT, and AI Announcements — But Nothing for IBM i

  September 26, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Infor made several product announcements at its annual user conference this week, including the introduction of a new mobile client program, several cloud announcements, and the GA date for the AI-based assistant it announced last year. But Day One of Inforum 2018 didn’t feature any new or enhanced software for IBM i, where about 18,000 Infor customers continue to run their enterprise software.

  Do you like to “seamlessly glide between applications”? If so, then you’re liable to just love the new Infor Go mobile client, which Infor announced yesterday at the Inforum 2018 conference in Washington D.C.

  Infor says its …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, September 26

  September 26, 2018 Jenny Thomas

  IBM has been putting a lot of eggs in the Blockchain basket, and it looks like its investments are starting to hatch. Blockchain is starting to take hold in the U.S. with one of the nation’s largest retailers making it a business requirement for its suppliers. But Blockchain isn’t the only investment that is paying off for IBM. Watson is also branching out into farms, factories, and offices around the globe. Now is the time to start planning for those Fall conferences so be sure to take a look at our Calendar below for many opportunities for networking and continuing …

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