• IBM Patches Heartbleed Vulnerability in Power Systems Firmware

  May 15, 2014 Alex Woodie

  If you thought your IBM i server was completely immune to the Heartbleed vulnerability, think again. On Friday, IBM issued a security bulletin directing customers to upgrade their Power Systems firmware with a patch for the Heartbleed vulnerability in OpenSSL. In its security bulletin, IBM advised that Power Systems firmware was affected by the Heartbleed vulnerability, CVE-2014-0160, and advised customers to take action. The bulletin applies to the Power Systems server Firmware, HMC, and SDMC. You can find the bulletin at www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas8N1020034. According to IBM’s bulletin, the vulnerability impacts all current Version 770 (including Power 710, 720, 730,

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• Using Built-In Global Variables In DB2 For i 7.2

  May 14, 2014 Michael Sansoterra

  The long awaited announcement of IBM i 7.2 comes with several enhancements to DB2 for i. In this tip, I’m going to explore the new set of built-in global variables that come with DB2 for i 7.2. If you’re unfamiliar with global variables, see New in DB2 for i 7.1: Use Global Variables to Track Environment Settings or the CREATE VARIABLE statement. The list of built-in global variables can be divided into three groups: Group 1: Client TCP/IP Info CLIENT_IPADDR VARCHAR(128) CLIENT_PORT INT As their names imply, these global variables return the IP address and port of the current client’s

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• Interpreting Stream File Timestamps

  May 14, 2014 Ted Holt

  Fortunately, IBM i has an Integrated File System (IFS), into which you can store any kind of data your heart desires. Fortunately, IBM provides an API that your programs can use to retrieve information about IFS stream files. Unfortunately, this API is rooted in the Unix world. Unfortunately, timestamps are stored in what I would call a bizarre manner. Fortunately, you are intelligent enough to learn how this API works. When you need to know programmatically about a stream file, you can use the stat API. Like many things UNIX, stat is idiosyncratic, especially in the way that it reports

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• Admin Alert: When Journaling Slows Down Your System, And What To Do About It

  May 14, 2014 Joe Hertvik

  One interesting feature of the IBM i operating system is that under certain circumstances, journaling can actually slow down batch job performance. Here’s a real-life case study of how journaling can slow down processing and what tools IBM provides to handle the situation. When Journaling Attacks After migrating a production IBM i partition to a new Power 7+ machine from Power 6 hardware, a batch job that previously took five hours to complete was now taking over 11 hours to finish and had to be cancelled each time it ran. This package rebuilt an item table in the company’s ERP

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• As The World Turns: Investments In IBM i

  May 12, 2014 Dan Burger

  It’s been four years since the introduction of IBM i 7.1. In between 7.1 and 7.2, which was put out on May 2, there were eight Technology Releases pegged to 7.1. Those releases were the indicators that IBM was still investing in the IBM i platform. It was a new strategy for Big Blue. How did it affect IBM and the IBM i community? That’s a good question. At the COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, Florida last week, Steve Will, chief architect for IBM i, and Alison Butterill, IBM i product offering manager, described the 7.1 to 7.2

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• Doing The Two-Step To Get To Power8

  May 12, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  For most IBM i shops, the advent of the new IBM i 7.2 release and the Technology Refresh 8 for IBM i 7.1, both announced in the past several weeks, are more important than any shiny new Power8 iron, regardless of how much oomph it has. At any given time, only a relatively small percentage of customers are at a point where they absolutely have to upgrade their systems. For most shops, workloads grow more or less along with their revenues and even if they add new workloads, their existing Power6, Power6+, Power7, and Power7+ machines have enough latent capacity

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• IBM Power Systems Can Do Big Data Analytics, Too

  May 12, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Server workloads are typically broken down into two broad categories: transactional or analytical. For most IBM i shops, the focus is heavily on the transactional side of the equation. But as IBM i shops peek over the wall into the rapidly expanding world of big data analytics, they will be pleased to find that IBM and its partners are bringing together a collection of big data tooling that will happily run on the system they already own. Granted, the chances of the big data analytics software running directly on IBM i are slim to none. While IBMers like Mike Cain

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• Mad Dog 21/21: IBM, The Dacoit, And Ganesha’s Mother

  May 12, 2014 Hesh Wiener

  In India, embarrassing incidents have raised the specter of impropriety on the part of a few IBMers, now ex-IBMers, and another former IBMer who had for a decade been a big client. In the USA, IBM launched a website to market cloud computing. Right out of the chute, the site failed for mobile clients; instead of displaying valid web pages, it served the Big Blue Screen of Death. Worldwide, revenue has fallen for eight consecutive quarters. Chip fabs are for sale as IBM chops up its furniture to feed the fire. This stuff gives customers shpilkes; some will flee.

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• IBM Announcements Buzz At COMMON Annual Meeting

  May 12, 2014 Dan Burger

  The timing of the COMMON Annual Meeting–one week after IBM made Power8 and IBM i 7.2 announcements–provided equal parts of inspiration and jubilation. Those IBM announcements contributed a noticeable buzz that carried throughout the educational sessions and the exposition hall. There was also the venue–a right-sized hotel and conference center–that contributed to the feeling that COMMON was the showcase event and avoided the lost in the crowd feeling that an oversized setting creates. So much of our lives–at work and at home–are lived online these days it’s difficult to overstate the importance of getting together at a conference and participating

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• Hotels Expand Agilysys Footprints As Vendor Sells UK Business

  May 12, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Two major hotels, including the Caesar’s chain and a new 326-room Bahamas resort scheduled to open in June, recently licensed enterprise software from Agilysys, the software vendor announced this month. Agilysys also announced the disposition of its UK business as it pursues an international reseller strategy. Agilysys says Resorts World Bimini will use its Lodging Management System (LMS) and the Visual One Condo Accounting System in the management of its 480-unit Bahamas resort. Resorts World Bimini will also use LMS to manage a new 326-room luxury hotel set to open in June, it said. Representatives for Resorts World Bimini

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