• PowerVM Hypervisor Gets Active Memory Sharing

  June 15, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  I’ll admit it. I like hardware, and I like to learn about new hardware features first. But in an increasingly virtualized computing environment, many of the cooler functions are not, strictly speaking, being implemented in hardware, but rather deep in the hypervisor and system microcode. And so it is with one neat–and little discussed–feature that was just announced by IBM for logical partitions on Power-based servers called active memory sharing. The PowerVM server virtualization hypervisor has been able to carve up as well as gang up chunks of processing, memory, and I/O capacity into logical servers long since before it

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• Mad Dog 21/21: Playing For Keeps in Peoria

  June 15, 2009 Hesh Wiener

  When Chief Pontiac worked out a settlement with his British adversaries in 1766 and retired to what is now southwestern Illinois, he thought his place in history was secure. Three years later, he was murdered by a Peoria. Today Peoria means Caterpillar, not Native Americans, and Pontiac’s name has faded, like the eponymous brand of GM automobiles. But no Pontiac suffered the ignominy of Windows Live OneCare computer security software, which, gelded and code-named Morro, will be given away, if it can be, by Microsoft, a company that just ceased making money. Chief Pontiac: Survived years

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• CIOs Cut IT Spending 5 Percent in Q1, Gartner Says

  June 15, 2009 Alex Woodie

  A Gartner survey released last week found that CIOs around the world reduced their IT spending by an average of nearly 5 percent during the first quarter of the year. Many organizations slashed spending even more, particularly in the telecommunications and professional services sectors, where IT spending was down more than 10 percent. The good news is that most organizations do not foresee any more drops in IT spending for the rest of the year, Gartner says. About 900 IT chiefs from organizations all over the world participated in Gartner’s survey, which was conducted from the beginning of March through

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• European and Australian Server Markets Collapse in Q1

  June 15, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The global server sales and shipment statistics from IDC and Gartner that we reported on in the past two issues of The Four Hundred show just how bad the impact of the economic meltdown has been on server makers. Subsequent data released by these two companies shows that if the global server market was awful in Q1, then it was terrible in Europe and downright shocking in Australia. To recap the server picture on a global basis: Gartner says that server sales fell by 24 percent to $10.1 billion, and shipments fell by 24.2 percent to 1.72 million boxes, while

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• Lotus Brags of Microsoft Partners Flocking to Foundations Appliance

  June 15, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The difference between the X64 version of the Smart Cube appliance server being peddled by IBM‘s System and Technology Group and the Lotus Foundations appliance being sold by the Software Group is a subtle one. Unless you are talking about channels. Then, at least for now, there is a big difference. Last week, IBM said that in the first five months of 2009 more than 1,000 partners who had been peddling various Microsoft applications for small and medium businesses have inked deals with Big Blue to distribute the Lotus Foundations appliances. The Lotus Foundations appliances came out last November

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• IT Distributors Hope Sales Have Hit Bottom in U.S.

  June 15, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The IT sales channel, through which the majority of server, storage, and software products actually travel from factories to end user customers, is hoping that the worst of the economic meltdown is over. Just prior to a meeting of members held last week in London and just after a meeting held in New York in mid-May, the Global Technology Distribution Council, called the bottom of the market, at least in the United States. The GTDC is an industry association representing some of the biggest names in IT distribution–Arrow Electronics, Avnet, Bell Micro, Ingram Micro,

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• IBM Does Social Networking on New Business Partner Site

  June 15, 2009 Dan Burger

  When you have 100,000 business partners, you don’t want them all talking at once. Or maybe you do. Later this month, IBM will test that theory as it rolls out a social networking site with high expectations that it will accelerate technology mashups and facilitate sales to the advantage of everyone involved. Although it sounds like a good idea, as we all know the proof is in the puddin’. In other words, a partner will have to taste it before digging in. And then 99,999 other partners will have to do the same. That seems like a pretty big number,

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• IBM Presents Awards to Most Innovative Business Partners

  June 15, 2009 Dan Burger

  During a recent conversation with Bob Tipton, I picked up a couple of tips about how certain companies and certain individuals are open to innovation. It doesn’t just happen like magic. There are steps, tools, and approaches that can be learned. You can learn to be innovative. There’s a necessary attitude, a desire, and an atmosphere that is conducive to innovation, but by and large the process is not like spontaneous combustion. It’s planned. As a reward for innovation within the IBM business partner ranks, Big Blue has the Beacon Awards. It’s an annual recognition, within its PartnerWorld program,

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• Configuring Run SQL Scripts for Ad Hoc Queries

  June 10, 2009 Skip Marchesani

  Many months ago, when I needed to create and execute an ad hoc query using SQL, my tool of choice was Interactive SQL, available via the System i green screen interface. I don’t recall any dramatic change taking place–I suspect it was gradual–but these days I find myself using Run SQL Scripts (a.k.a. SQL Script Center or Script Center) from System i Navigator, instead of Interactive SQL, to execute an ad hoc SQL Query. The Script Center offers a couple of advantages over Interactive SQL. Specifically the Script Center allows you to intermix and execute SQL statements and batch CL

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• Advanced DB2 for i Data Access Techniques with .NET

  June 10, 2009 Hey, Mike

  There are a lot of shops like mine where one or two people are responsible for everything and we are very busy trying to learn new technologies and push the business forward. My project is very large. It will eventually replace 90 percent of the green-screen menu driven system we currently use. I am working on this project alone and building it slowly from the ground up. I want to have a well-built base. I want to understand how .NET and DB2 work together before I start building a lot on top of the base program. I am working with

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