• RCAC in DB2 for i, Part 1: Row Access Permissions

  August 18, 2015 Michael Sansoterra

  In a world of hackers, every data asset is vulnerable to theft or tampering. Protecting data can be costly, yet being hacked is even costlier. Enter IBM‘s row and column access control. RCAC is a big deal as businesses are looking for effective tools to control security, in particular, database security. RCAC allows database security administrators to tighten the reigns on who can view data in the database. Even better, many of these security measures can be implemented without changing applications. Versions of DB2, Postgre SQL, Oracle, SQL Server (currently in preview with Azure v12 and SQL Server 2016),

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• What Will IBM i Do With A Power10 Processor?

  August 17, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The gap between what is needed and what is provided has been growing and growing for years, and we don’t talk about that very much in the IBM i base. As someone who loves big iron with lots of horsepower, I tend to look on each new Power chip rollout as a chance for the IBM i platform to capture more and more work. While this happens at a number of shops that mix IBM i and Linux workloads–and sometimes AIX, too–for the most part, the IBM i platform is a silo in the datacenter even if other applications tickle

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• BI On IBM i: A Fish Out Of Water

  August 17, 2015 Dan Burger

  A fish discovers it needs water when it is no longer in it. A business discovers it needs data when it can’t get it. Or, in many cases, it can’t get the data it wants, when it’s wanted, and how it’s wanted. In the IBM midrange, the term “operational reporting” has been around forever. Because we have a habit of changing the names of old things to make them sound new, the term “business intelligence” is more favored. What matters is getting information in a timely manner and in a friendly format. The underlying infrastructure doesn’t matter. Operational reporting is

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• Staying Paperless On IBM i In A Post-It Note World

  August 17, 2015 Alex Woodie

  At some point during the move to the all-digital office, customers discovered they’re missing something that’s little, yellow, and slightly sticky. Since 3M launched the humble Post-it note 35 years ago, it has grown to become an irreplaceable component of the American corporate machine. In fact, it’s so ingrained in how we work that IntelliChief recently added Post-it note-like functionality to its workflow management software. “What we found was it’s really a Post-it note world,” IntelliChief marketing manager Tim Nissen tells IT Jungle. “It’s amazing how everybody understands the value of the mighty Post-it note. We thought, hey, if

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• Mobile Apps And The IBM i Fear Factory

  August 17, 2015 Dan Burger

  “It can seem scary when you look at all the different mobile devices and wonder how to develop something that works for everything.” Those are the words of mobile application developer Nick Hampson. Fear of the unknown is a powerful preventative. It’s not a happy place, especially if your job is to create mobile business applications for an IBM i-centric organization. Rid yourself of this anxiety right away. “I think the real stumbling block for IBM i people–if they are coming from SEU and PDM–is that there are completely new skills. It’s quite muddy for people to see. I talk

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• Magic Software Rises Despite Devaluing U.S. Dollar

  August 17, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hot on the heels of its announcement of enhancements to an in-memory data grid for its Magic xpa application development environment that will eventually support the IBM i platform, Magic Software turned in pretty good numbers in its most recent quarter despite the compressing effects of current fluctuations that are affecting all global IT suppliers. In the second quarter ended in June, Magic said that it had increased revenues by 4.6 percent to $42.5 million. Gross profits were down 4.4 percent to $15 million, but the revenue bump was large enough to cover the gap and net income actually rose

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• The IBM i Market Is Not Economics 101

  August 10, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It is a time of transition for the Power Systems line, and that is one of the reasons why sales have been picking up in recent quarters. The full Power8 product line has been rounded out and is shipping in volume, from the smallest single-socket box up to the biggest, baddest 16-socket server. The Power7+ processors have been in midrange machines since October 2012 and came to entry machines in February 2013 and are winding down in the channel. With IBM i 5.4 sunsetted and IBM i 6.1 saddling up for its ride to the west, this is when we

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• Lack Of Awareness Plagues Free-Form RPG

  August 10, 2015 Dan Burger

  How could IBM be more successful with IBM i? How about this novel idea: product promotion. For all the money it spends on product development, IBM fails to expand the IBM i market because product awareness remains low. This discussion could go in a lot of different directions, but for today let’s make the focus free-form RPG. This is one of the top IBM i enhancements in recent memory. Why isn’t the IBM i community aware of it? Beginning with IBM i 7.1, RPG IV coders gained the capability to do completely free-form programs. The benefit of free-form calcs had

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• IBM Patches More OpenSSL Flaws In IBM i

  August 10, 2015 Alex Woodie

  IBM last month issued integrity PTFs for IBM i 6.1 through IBM i 7.2 to address eight recently discovered security vulnerabilities in OpenSSL. This includes the so-called Logjam Attack in TLS, which was disclosed by security researchers in May and could allow attackers to read encrypted traffic. The eight vulnerabilities also exist in i5/OS V5R3 and V5R4, but IBM will not fix them, it says. IBM i shops are encouraged to apply the patches–including SI57527 for IBM i 6.1, SI57473 for IBM i 7.1, and SI57468 for IBM i 7.2–as soon as possible. For organizations running older versions of the

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• As I See It: Game On

  August 10, 2015 Victor Rozek

  His days are spent in a small room, eyes fixated straight ahead. His appearance is neglectful, and he often forgets to take sustenance. An observant visitor might notice a peculiar thickness around his slender waist. He wears a diaper. He endures this indignity not because he is elderly or disabled, but because he cannot bear to tear himself away from the screen on which endless battles rage. Chinese authorities estimate there are another 24 million like him, a generation of gamers addicted to the action-life depicted in violent virtual worlds. Marathon sessions are common. Serious gamers routinely play for 20,

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