• IBM Tweaks Power Systems Rebate Deals Once Again

  February 13, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Those marketeers at IBM are at it again, jiggering and rejiggering their Power Systems deals. Two on-again, off-again deals that Big Blue has been running for years were modified last week. The Power Systems First In Location rebate deal was modified in announcement letter 312-018. This deal was last tweaked in June last year, when IBM added and subtracted the machines that could be acquired as well as the ISV applications that could be acquired to be eligible for the deal. This time around, the Power7 Gen2 machines that have PCI-Express 2.0 peripheral slots–the entry and high-end machines that

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• IBM RackSwitch 10 GE Switch Does Cheaper Copper Wiring

  February 13, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The first 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches came out in 2002, and for many years they were just the high-speed backbones that service providers and network operators installed as trunk lines between gear. But here we are a decade later, and 2012 is expected to be a transition year for 10 GE networking, where ports first start appearing on system boards and switches get cheap enough for 10 GE gear to go mainstream. The only problem, however, is that even as switches and server ports get cheaper, and the benefits of running converged server and storage traffic over a 10 GE

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• Peripherals I Want For IBM i Boxes: Cheap SATA SSDs

  February 13, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Let me make this as simple as I can: Any neat new storage or peripheral gadget I see being announced for System x rack or tower servers, I want to see available in Power Systems machines supporting the IBM i operating system. No ifs, ands, or buts. Here’s a case in point. In announcement letter 112-013 last week, IBM announced new solid state disks based on multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory and sporting 6 Gb/sec SATA interfaces. These SSDs came in 128 GB and 256 GB capacities and in 2.5-inch form factors. They burn somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5

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• bsearch: A Better %LOOKUP

  February 8, 2012 Jon Paris

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. In qsort: A Better SORTA, I described the use of the qsort API. This time, we’ll be looking at its companion API–bsearch–which, as its name suggests, is used to perform searches. Recent changes in array support in RPG, including V6.1’s abilities to define large arrays, means that I use bsearch less frequently than I used to. Nevertheless, the fact that I write the code that controls the matching still makes it useful. For example, I can code bsearch to search for a partial string, which is something

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• Using JSON and RPG To Create Interactive Web 2.0 Applications

  February 8, 2012 Alex Roytman

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. In my last article, Meet JSON, I introduced you to the concept of JavaScript Object Notation and how it’s changing the way Web applications are being built. Let’s explore JSON syntax a little further by building a really simple customer inquiry Web application. The code can be downloaded here. This application consists of three simple parts: CustInq.html–Simple HTML page to ask for customer number and present customer information CUSTINQ.rpgle–RPG/CGI program to output customer information in JSON format CustInq.js–JavaScript code to facilitate the communication between the RPG

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• Admin Alert: QSECOFR Security Problems I Have Known

  February 8, 2012 Joe Hertvik

  Handling the QSECOFR user profile is always problematic. On one hand, it’s essential for the smooth operation of your system. Conversely, it can be a major issue if someone discovers its password. This week, I’ll review some real-life QSECOFR security breaches I’ve encountered and what can be done if you encounter these situations in your shop. Real-Life QSECOFR Security Situations A lot of strange things can occur with QSECOFR usage. Here are some common situations I’ve run into over the years and what can be done, if you encounter them. 1. Situation: Your IBM i administrator doesn’t change the QSECOFR

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• Flex Platform: An IBM System That Goes With The Tech Flow

  February 7, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM had the right idea back in April 1964 when it announced the System/360 mainframe, and it even had a name that reflected its understanding of what customers wanted. The idea was that a single line of machines, using different processor and storage technologies, would be united by levels of abstraction that would allow them to all run the same applications, but just on a different scale and with different price points. It is a lesson that IBM quickly forgot when it bifurcated its market in 1969 with the advent of the System/3 minicomputer, and I still believe that IBM

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• Charges Dropped, Rational Open Access Goes Free

  February 6, 2012 Dan Burger

  There’ll be no confetti dropping from the ceiling or champagne corks popping, but IBM‘s announcement that Rational Open Access: RPG Edition becomes available as a free PTF beginning February 14 deserves a little fanfare. Here’s a technology with a lot of promise, the native GUI interface as some call it, that’s finally available without blood, sweat, and tears poured into the ordering process. And, even better, without any licensing charges. The PTFs are the short-term solution to getting RPG OA into the hands of those who have complained to IBM for that past two years. By May, RPG OA

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• RPG Open Access: You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

  February 6, 2012 Dan Burger

  For the past two years RPG Open Access technology has been available, yet it remained unseen and even unheard by a great many people in the IBM i community. A combination of low visibility–partly related to a few ISVs taking the lead on some projects, while onlookers waited to see how the projects turned out–and limited budgets, which put a lot of IT and other expenditures on the skids. Application modernization projects have sprouted here and there, but let’s just say it’s not burning down the house. It’s at a point, however, where we should see a green-screen fade. Another

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• As I See It: Failure Is Not Just For Executives Anymore

  February 6, 2012 Victor Rozek

  If you want to become successful, every few years someone will write a book telling you how. Just follow these three steps, develop these seven habits, add stock options and voila, you too can be a screaming success. Or, if that doesn’t work, it helps to have the good fortune to be born to rich, connected parents. Success is all well and good, but given the number of “successes” who were once thought to be shining stars in the corporate firmament but turned out to be cheap fireworks instead, it’s high time someone paid homage to the qualities that

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