• Reassessing IBM i Value: Worthless Iron or Legacy Goldmine?

  March 21, 2018 Alex Woodie

  In the minds of modern-day technologists, the IBM i server is relegated to the scrap bin of history, looked down upon as a vestigial organ of technology’s past with no place in the distributed future, where workloads run effortlessly on clouds and data flows seamlessly everywhere. That outlook gives the platform’s present value a low mark, but considering the recent influx of capital into IBM i ecosystem, one might want to reassess.

  Trying to assess the value of something is not an easy thing to do. When looking at the worth of the entire IBM i ecosystem, or even just …

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• A Closer Look At Enhancements To Integrated Web Services

  March 21, 2018 Dan Burger

  Technology Refresh 8 for IBM i 7.2 and TR4 for IBM i 7.3 became available last week. One of the enhancements in this TR pertains to the Integrated Web Services (IWS), which Business Architect for IBM i Application Development Tim Rowe calls IWS “one of our most widely used pieces of software from an integrated perspective.”

  Web services provide the capability to expose the database to outside developers via APIs and Web services. Although that thought brings a shiver down the spine of many developers who learned the proprietary ways of the AS/400, multi-platform integration is the modern development path. …

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• Rest4i Eyes Digital Transformation Via API

  March 21, 2018 Alex Woodie

  A new company headed by IBM i software veterans is beginning to turn some heads with a new product aimed at helping IBM i shops with digital transformation strategies. Rest4i, as the outfit is called, says its LXR framework turns IBM i into a lean, mean REST API-serving machine.

  Stuart Milligan, who headed the UK software firm Databorough before it was sold to Fresche Legacy (now Fresche Solutions) way back in 2013, says LXR (pronounced “Lexer”) is the result of four years of investment and development in a “pure IBM i REST API solution.”

  Milligan describes LXR as …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 21

  March 21, 2018 Dan Burger

  RPG is in the palm of her hand. She’s Barbara Morris and she leads RPG development at IBM’s Toronto Labs. Her fingerprints are on all RPG enhancements, so if you are interested in the DATA-INTO feature that just became available, you can do no better than to hear about it from Barbara. Check inside Monitor for the link to her interview with Paul Tuohy.

  Also inside is a link to an IBM i security quiz. Find out quickly what you do and don’t know. Then check out the articles on IBM’s new microcomputer and the market pressure to make AI …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 11

  March 21, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  New cumes!! V7R3 and V7R2 both have new cumulative PTF groups this week. This effectively correlates the roll-up of the Spectre and Meltdown patches into a traditional apply methodology. Check our PTF Guide for the latest activity on both Spectre and Meltdown and your applicable release. In a nutshell, loading the latest cume and groups gets you protected at the LIC and OS levels. For firmware, you still need to determine and address separately.

  Also, read the cover letter for the cume carefully — if you are running PowerHa or Content Manager, there are “things” you need to be aware …

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• Bang For The Buck On Power9 Entry Hardware

  March 19, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When it comes right down to it, there are three things that drive a server upgrade or new system purchase among IBM midrange shops: They have an aging system that has to be replaced, workloads are expanding and driving new capacity, or new workloads are being added to the system. In many cases, the situation involves two or even all three of these factors. But what gets the deal done is the value that the new system brings above and beyond satisfying those needs. You have to get a good deal so everyone looks like a hero.

  The good news …

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• The IBM i Roadmap Leads To A Familiar Place

  March 19, 2018 Dan Burger

  Reeve Fritchman is working on project that he believes might tell the future of the IBM i. It’s a complex mainframe-to-IBM i migration. The core applications were written by an in-house team of developers, many who are still on the staff but on the verge of retirement. The hardware maintenance is expensive, and a hardware upgrade would be absurdly expensive. The bills from CA for automation software are staggering.

  “The demise of the mainframe in small to medium size shops could be a precursor of what will happen in the AS/400 environment – fewer skilled workers, expensive, and better technology …

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• Guru: Beyond The Basics Of Code Conversion

  March 19, 2018 Paul Tuohy

  Today many RPG programmers are tasked with having to modernize existing programs. These programs often have long and varied history. They may be RPG IV programs or they may be RPG IV programs that were originally RPG II or RPG III programs, or any permutation or combination you can imagine. There are tools available to help us convert from fixed-form RPG to free-form RPG and, within RDi, we have options to help us reformat code and refactor variable names. But these tools can only go so far. We finally reach the point where we have to put fingers to the …

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• Ensono Embiggens With Wipro Data Center Deal

  March 19, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Ensono isn’t the most well-known datacenter operator in the world, either in the open systems or mainframe/IBM i space where it currently operates. But thanks to its recently announced deal with Wipro to buy eight Wipro data centers for nearly half a billion dollars, the Chicago-based company is putting itself on the map.

  If the name Ensono is news to you, you are not alone. The company was formed just two years ago when Arkansas-based Acxiom spun out its IT Outsourcing (ITO) division to create a standalone entity with four data centers in the US, three in Europe, and $300 …

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• Sundry Power Systems Announcements, Here And There

  March 19, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The big Power Systems announcements came out in February, but IBM always has some things that need to get done. And last week, it wrapped up a few loose ends with some nips and tucks in the product line.

  In announcement letter 118-030, we learned all about them. First off, IBM has expanded the storage capacity of the Power-based CS822 servers, which are special version of the Power S822 based on Power8 chips that are designed to support the hyperconverged storage stack from Nutanix. We told you all about the CS821 and CS822 servers for running the Nutanix Enterprise …

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