The Four Hundred Archives - Page 526 of 1511

As I See It: The Rats Are Coming

August 26, 2013 Victor Rozek

There are many good reasons why a pack of rats is also referred to as a mischief. They are opportunistic, breed like Kardashians, can chew through just about anything including steel, and host some nasty pathogens including Yersinia pestis, a micro-organism found in fleas responsible for the Bubonic Plague.

Rats jump, climb, swim, and can hold their breath for up to four minutes. They’re tough enough to have survived 10 years of atomic testing on Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific. And if that’s not enough, they’re quick learners. They can learn to navigate a maze, solve problems, and

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Avnet’s Solutions And Services Strategy Adjusts To IT Buying Changes

August 26, 2013 Dan Burger

We’ve heard it from IBM and all the major analyst companies: companies are no longer buying products; they are buying solutions. IT vendors that have depended on hardware sales for the bulk of their revenue are shifting to a more services-oriented style. Just two weeks ago, at the Avnet Compass conference for the business partners of that giant IT reseller, the services story was emphasized again and again. The way organizations consume IT is changing. Avnet is changing, too.

There was a time when Avnet’s business on the IT side–it also has a large electronics components business, of course–was mostly

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Reeder Feedback On A New IBM i Team Is Needed

August 26, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Dan:

Quite often I pass the articles around from IT Jungle. This one caused quite a stir in our organization–in a good way.

My eyes were opened. I learned that management does not understand the difference between “big data” and “data centric programming” vs. “application programming.”

I am the database engineer here (a brand new position), and we are going through some growing pains as a result. But, we are in a perfect storm to embrace the challenges. I am looking for a good article, in plain English on data centric programming.

Thank you and keep up the good

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IBM Chops Power7+ Processor Prices On Flex Iron

August 26, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

If you are shopping for a new two-socket Flex p260+ server node, then good news. IBM just slashed the prices on the processor cards on three out of the four processor card features that were announced with the machines earlier this month.

As The Four Hundred previously reported, IBM trotted out three new server nodes in the Flex System chassis on August 6. Apparently IBM is unhappy with the pricing of the 7895-23A processor cards, which were aimed specifically at IBM i shops and which have two Power7+ processors running at 4 GHz, each with two cores. But the

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IBM To Host Cloud Summit For ISVs and MSPs In Rochester

August 26, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Big Blue is looking to get managed service providers who are building infrastructure clouds based on the IBM i platform together with independent software vendors who want to run their wares in the cloud together at a IBM i Cloud Summit held in Rochester, Minnesota.

The event, which will run on October 2 and 3, will be free of charge to MSPs and ISVs that want to attend, but they will have to cover their own travel and lodging costs, says Ian Jarman, the long-time IBM i product manager who is now business unit executive for Lab Services in the

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Manta Is Listening To Your IBM i Training Needs

August 26, 2013 Jenny Thomas

If you’re looking for IBM i specific training, one of the people you’ll want to talk to is Bill Hansen, president of Manta Technologies. He’s the right person to go to not just because he’s been in the training industry since the 1980s, but because he’ll listen.

Hansen has made a business of creating the training courses that people want. Just last year, he introduced a COBOL training series for programming students, which his customers had been telling him was at the top of their wish lists. Since then, he has been rolling out additional courses, and has just

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Key Information Systems Buys Cloud And Co-Location Biz

August 26, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Long-time IBM i platform reseller and system integrator Key Information Systems is going into the data center co-location, connectivity, and cloud computing businesses after acquiring ISWest, a data center operator located in its neck of Southern California.

Key Info did not disclose the financial details of the acquisition, but Leif Morin, the company’s president, tells The Four Hundred that the opportunity to acquire the assets of ISWest and take on its team of data center operations experts was too good to pass up. Key has 55 employees and generates around $55 million per year from its reseller and consulting

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Override Default Data Types In The SQL Descriptor

August 21, 2013 Hey, Mike

Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here.

I’d like to use SQL Descriptors in an embedded SQL program to read column data into host variables. However, if my host variable type doesn’t match exactly the parameter or column data type then I receive an SQL0076 error: “DATA or INDICATOR item not correct.” How can I, for example, receive the data from a CHAR(10) column from the SQL descriptor into an RPG varying-length character 20 variable, without using an explicit CAST in the SQL statement?

–J.B.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: If you’re unfamiliar with SQL descriptors, please see

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Join The Queue With Open Access

August 21, 2013 Jon Paris

Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here.

It has been a while since my last tip on RPG Open Access and now that everyone running IBM i V6 or 7 has access to it for no additional cost, I thought it was time to revisit the subject.

OA handlers operate in one of two modes: buffer and names/values. The buffer option performs better, but requires the handler to know the layout of the data in the buffer in advance. Names/values (NV) handlers, such as the one I introduced in the previous article, do not

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Which Job Is Filling Up My System Storage?

August 21, 2013 Hey, Joe

Every so often, our system storage breaches its threshold level, and we have to find the job that is filling up storage before it crashes our system. This is usually a race against time. Do you have any tips on how to quickly find runaway jobs that are gobbling up storage?

–Mike

I feel your pain on this one. Hitting the threshold can be a recurring event in some shops, and it’s always better to find out sooner when this problem occurs rather than later.

Here’s how I handle this issue.

Set Your ASP Threshold At A Reasonable Level

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