• 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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• Unicom Unleashes Code Management With Mobile UIs

  March 7, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Organizations using the IBM i change management and help desk tools from Unicom Global will see some big changes to the products. Thanks to a new mobile-first initiative, users can now access code management functions from smartphones and tablets, in addition to PCs. SoftLanding’s Turnover, Unicom’s change management tool for IBM i, also received some new core features.

  Unicom Global announced that it has added new user interfaces to two IBM i products, including Turnover, the change management product originally developed by SoftLanding Systems (which Unicom now runs as a subsidiary), and Expressdesk, a help desk package that provides incident …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 7

  March 7, 2018 Dan Burger

  RPG ILE has been enhanced with the addition of DATA-INTO functionality, which will become available March 16. DATO-INTO supports the parsing of multiple states types — JSON being the most important. It imports data from a data document into a data structure. For those familiar with XML-INTO and RPG Open Access, DATA-INTO can be grasped quite easily. Those needing a little help can look inside Monitor.

  Also inside Monitor this week, you’ll discover why system admins should be watching the open source news for helpful features, and you’ll be scrutinizing what AI (hello Watson) has in store for developers …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 9

  March 7, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  More Breaking News! Yes, it is Spectre and Meltdown update time once again. The firmware issued for certain systems causes V6R1M1 to have an IPL failure. Check the worksheet in the IBM i PTF Guide and see this link.

  The V7R2 recommended fixes for Temporary Disk Space have something worth looking at, which is MF64483 and which was released on March 1. Apparently, this has to do with tracking and curbing temporary disk space growth.

  One last thing. the Spectre and Meltdown speculative execution security vulnerabilities have been classified by IBM’s Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) as having …

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• The Deal On Power9 Memory For Entry Servers

  March 5, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There are a lot of changes that come with any new Power Systems platform. But perhaps the biggest change – and one that will in some ways make the Power9 platform more competitive with X86 and ARM servers and in others less competitive – is the way IBM is shifting from buffered DDR3 and DDR4 main memory used in Power8 iron to plain vanilla registered DDR4 memory that is commonly used in all servers these days.

  Buffered memory had its heyday on high-end NUMA systems, and was necessary to try to balance the needs of memory bandwidth against ever-increasing compute …

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• Five Strategies For Surviving A Software Audit

  March 5, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Dealing with a software licensing audit can be a scary thing, particularly for smaller outfits with limited resources. Martin Thompson of the Campaign for Clear Licensing recently clued IT Jungle into some of the audit strategies that big software companies are employing, and how software customers can be prepared.

  Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, and SAP are widely respected for the quality of their software and the responsiveness of their technical support. But they are also feared by customers due to the legal power they hold, the restrictive licensing terms in contracts, and how they use software audits to …

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• Guru: Searching Teraspace

  March 5, 2018 Jon Paris

  In my previous tip, Sorting In Teraspace, I looked at how the qsort API can be used to sequence data in ways that SortA can’t begin to approach. Now that the data is sorted, one of the things I may want to do with it is to search it. In this tip I will look at how that can be achieved using the bsearch API. The approach I will be discussing allows for partial key searches and handling the fact that such a search may result in multiple hits.

  As you will see when we work through the code, …

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• Advice For the IBM i Application Fence Sitters

  March 5, 2018 Dan Burger

  Most executive management does not recognize the importance of IT. They don’t understand it and, therefore, don’t see the potential business advantages that come with restructuring a system that was put in place 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. So, how important is it to influence the perception of IT within organizations?

  And how do you get more business managers thinking strategically about IT? One of the keys is to demonstrate how IT is the engine for growth and not a money pit with high risk and little return on investment. There are challenges to overcome, for sure. Don’t …

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• Cognitive Systems Hardware Business Gets A Boost

  March 5, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As 2017 came to an end, X86 server shipments and revenues surged, and IBM’s System z14 mainframes came to market and Big Blue got a much-needed injection of revenues and profits in its Cognitive Systems hardware business.

  While IBM did start shipping some initial Power9 iron as the year came to an end, shipments are not going to start in earnest until March, when the “ZZ” entry Power Systems machines announced in February start shipping. In the quarter, and more or less consistent with what IBM said recently in its own financial reports, IDC believes that Big Blue had $2.69 …

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