• Avnet, Infor Join iManifest EMEA Program

  October 26, 2009 Dan Burger

  The iManifest initiative in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) gained momentum last week by adding some heavyweight corporate entities to the roster. For iManifest to climb the ladder of success, representation and financial backing by high-end companies is almost a requirement. iManifest Japan, the oldest and most well-developed of the iManifest initiatives, has achieved widespread support from the ISV community in Japan, including some big names. EMEA’s program just took a big step up. Martin Fincham, leader of the iManifest EMEA band, happily noted that Avnet, an IBM master reseller, and Infor, one of the largest

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• Rolling Thunder Rollout for Power7 Processors Next Year

  October 26, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  I’ve been getting a lot of questions from readers of The Four Hundred about the timing and configuration of entry Power Systems servers based on the future Power7 processors. People are not only worried about when the entry machines are going to be available and what their configurations might look like, but like me, your peers out there in AS/400 Land are more than a little bit worried that IBM might somehow not put the i operating system on the entry Power7 boxes, even as it does put AIX and Linux on them. I haven’t heard anything from inside Big

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• YiPsters Open No Cost Education and Training Web Site

  October 26, 2009 Dan Burger

  There’s a straight line that connects education and training with higher productivity and career satisfaction. It’s a great investment for organizations to make in their employees and it’s a wise investment for people to make in themselves and their futures. When the Young i Professionals (YiPs) started networking a few years ago and began talking about what they could accomplish as a group, one of the things on their “to do” list was to provide a source of free educational materials for the IBM i community. Consider it done. Actually, it’s not done, but it is available. Let’s call it

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• Hitachi Kicks Out Two 15K SAS Disks

  October 26, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hitachi‘s Global Storage Technologies, the division of the Japanese tech giant that ate IBM‘s disk drive business a few years back, has kicked out two new Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) disks that spin at 15K RPMs, and one of them is in a 2.5-inch form factor. This means Hitachi’s server OEM customers (and therefore end users buying servers) no longer have to resort to fatter and hotter 3.5-inch drives to get 15K RPM performance. If late 2007 was when SAS drives in the small form factor went mainstream, then it looks like late 2009 is when these drives

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• Getting the Message, Part 2

  October 21, 2009 Paul Tuohy

  In Part 1 of this series, we saw the definition of a number of message routines (clearMessages(), addMessage(), messageCount(), and getMessage()). In this article, we will see how the routines may be used in both an RPG and a PHP environment. We will also look at another couple of message routines that may be useful. Remember, a library containing the code used in these articles may be downloaded here. A Test Procedure Figure 1 shows a small subprocedure (fillMessages()) used to demonstrate that messages may be added/stored at any level in the job. The subprocedure simply adds a filler

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• Passing an Entire Result Set as a Parameter, Part 2

  October 21, 2009 Michael Sansoterra

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. In Part 1 of this series, I discussed a generic method of passing a delimited set of text records in CSV (comma separated variable) format into a single stored procedure variable. Once the stored procedure had this text data, a generic Java user-defined table function (UDTF) was used to parse the text data and convert it to a row set that could be by any number of standard DB2 for i statements, such as a SELECT or INSERT. So with a little sweat, it is indeed possible to

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• Setting Up SNTP Time Synchronization on an i5/OS Box

  October 21, 2009 Hey, Joe

  For PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) auditing, I need to ensure that my System i 550 time is synchronized with other network system clocks. How do I set up time synchronization on an i5/OS V5R4 box? –Len PCI DSS is a security standard being pushed by the credit card providers to encourage companies to adopt consistent security measures for protecting customer account data. Requirement 10.4 of the standard specifies that all critical system clocks and times must be synchronized. For an iSeries, System i, or Power i box, this means that your partitions must automatically synchronize their system clocks

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• Jarman Flashes Clues on Future DB2 and RPG Directions

  October 20, 2009 Dan Burger

  A statement of general direction is a fine tonic for IBM Power Systems i users, some of which are confused about IBM’s intentions with the platform. Last week, Ian Jarman, manager of Power Systems software and keynote speaker at the RPG & DB2 Summit gave i-centric attendees a glimpse of the future. Knowing his crowd well, he highlighted RPG and DB2 enhancements in the pipeline and explained Power Systems positioning with the benefits that lie ahead for those thirsty for IBM attention on i. As with any statement of general direction, details are limited, but they confirm details that appeared

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• i365 Launches New EVault Backup Appliance, Cloud Storage Service

  October 20, 2009 Alex Woodie

  i365 last week introduced a pair of new storage solutions that work with System i and other platforms. The new EVault Plug-n-Protect backup appliance is a scaled down version of an existing EVault device that’s designed for small and mid size businesses, while the new EVault Offsite Replication Service allows customers to implement a hybrid cloud storage that utilizes i365’s data centers, and can even be used as a warm site for disaster recovery. i365 is no stranger to the System i storage arena. The company, which was previously known as EVault and is a subsidiary of storage giant Seagate

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• nuBridges Delivers Major Upgrade to MFT Solution

  October 20, 2009 Alex Woodie

  nuBridges last week delivered a major update to its managed file transfer (MFT) offering with the launch of Exchange 3.0. The new software features a new Web 2.0-style interface and a unified code base for all target platforms, which should simplify the installation and overall use of the product. Exchange 3.0 also gives nuBridges’ System i customers a second MFT product to choose from. As the new flagship product of nuBridge’s MFT product offerings, nuBridges Exchange 3.0–or Exchange Enterprise as it is sometimes called–is an amalgamation of various file transfer products that nuBridges has built and bought through the years,

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