• Things That CIOs Should Know Keep Their CEOs Awake Nights

  March 23, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  This year is a bit of a mental and emotional challenge as well as being an economic one. And the whiz kids at Gartner make a habit and a business out of trying to say something intelligent about the goings-on in IT Land to help CIOs cope with conditions and their bosses, the CEOs, presidents, or owners. We are all in a bit of a state of shock absorbing the changes to the economy, our businesses, and our lives. But you have to shake it off and start planning for the future, all the same, says Gartner, which released a

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• Looking for Commitment, Part 2

  March 18, 2009 Paul Tuohy

  In this article I will take a look at the basic rules and coding requirements for using commitment control within RPG programs. A Database Figure 1 – SQL used to create a sample schema and tables. Note: The code show above is available for download here. Figure 1 shows the SQL used to create a schema named COMMIT, which contains two related tables, called HEADER and DETAILS. The main points to note are as follows (refer to the corresponding letters in Figure 1): A. Creating the schema COMMIT results in a library named COMMIT that contains a journal named

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• Treasury of New DB2 6.1 (V6R1) Features, Part 3: Client Special Registers

  March 18, 2009 Michael Sansoterra

  This article briefly explores the new client special registers that are now available in V6R1 and how they benefit client/server development. In case you missed them, Part 1 of this series discussed several query enhancements and explained how IBM is packing more functionality into a single statement. Part 2 of this series discussed the concept of super groups and grouping sets, which are very useful features that allow developers to add various aggregations to a result set. Now back to the topic at hand. Since so much new DB2 development is client/server based, IBM created a useful set of special

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• Admin Alert: Changing your SMTP Server is Easy-ish

  March 18, 2009 Joe Hertvik

  My shop recently upgraded its email system from Novell GroupWise to Microsoft Exchange. Along with the server change, we also had to reconfigure six i5/OS partitions to use the new Exchange server as their SMTP relay. If you’re faced with this type of issue, here’s an easy checklist for painlessly making the change. Three Easy Steps Changing your iSeries/System i/Power i SMTP relay is a relatively easy process with one or two minor kinks. There are three keys to making this change. Change the SMTP mail relay settings. This can be done either on the green-screen or in iSeries Navigator

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• Aldon Stresses Importance of End Users with Updated Help Desk

  March 18, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Aldon recently launched a new version of its help desk solution that should better connect an organization’s IT help desk with its end users. With Community Manager version 9, Aldon has worked on supporting ITIL version 3, the recently released set of IT standards that focuses much more on end users. As a result, Community Manager will enable end users to browse a catalog of available services, such as resetting a password, and then execute that service automatically through the portal. Community Manager is a Windows-based help desk application that allows users to submit requests to their IT department, such

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• Codelyzer Offers Relief from Application Maintenance Burdens

  March 17, 2009 Dan Burger

  For as long as programs have been written there has been program maintenance. And for as long as there has been program maintenance, there has been a laundry list of fixes and patches and revisions that over many years have made application maintenance into something like being in a row boat in the middle of a very large lake and having only one oar. It’s not unique to the IBM i environment, but it is a frequent occurrence. Maintenance programmers sometimes struggle with the structure of programs that have had numerous changes during many years in service. Often those changes

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• Raz-Lee Summarizes i OS Security Settings in New Compliance Product

  March 17, 2009 Alex Woodie

  The IBM System i is a notoriously difficult nut for auditors to crack. Accustomed to “standards-based” Windows and Unix systems, auditors sometimes struggle to make their way around a subject’s i OS-based computer. To help alleviate the pain of hunting for security data for auditors and IT managers alike, i OS security software developer Raz-Lee Security last month launched a new product called Compliance Evaluator that seeks to include the most relevant compliance-related security information in a concise, one-page summary. Raz-Lee, which is based in Israel and has its U.S. offices near New York City, has plenty of experience with

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• Tape Backup Recovery Points Improved With RecoverNow

  March 17, 2009 Dan Burger

  The importance of a dependable backup system is often taken for granted. Many organizations are relying on conventional tape-based processes that have been in place since Day One. For those looking beyond the short-comings of the 100 percent taped-based backup system, it’s the capability to quickly and properly restore backups and do so within a reasonable budget that avoids the pain. Reducing recovery point objectives (RPOs) is a big issue for many IBM i shops and it’s exactly why Vision Solutions has introduced RecoverNow. The primary benefit of RecoverNow is the capability to recover data (one or many files, objects,

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• Upstart i Developer Brings AS/400s to the Cloud

  March 17, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  What are the first two letters in “cloud computing?” Why, CL of course. And wouldn’t it be neat if there were a set of CL commands that let AS/400, iSeries, and System i machines reach out across the cosmic Ethernet and make use of cloud-based services? Well, thanks to programmer Garry Taylor, you can do just that. I have no idea who Garry Taylor is, and the Whois database has no idea where his site, PinkDirtyNeon, is located on the Internet, but Taylor sent me an email yesterday announcing the launch of a beta program for two cloud computing

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• Financial System Outsourcer Taps UC4 to for Job Automation

  March 17, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Computer Research Inc. (CRI), which develops and runs financial services software for its clients, has licensed the Workload Automation Suite from UC4 Software to help it manage its System i environment more proactively, UC4 announced last week. CRI develops a range of financial management products for its customers, which tend to be banks, broker dealers, bank brokerage subsidiaries, treasury operations, mutual funds, and other companies that need a way to maintain their portfolios, as well as their clients’ portfolios. The systems developed by CRI encompass a variety of needs, including trading stocks, bonds, futures, and other financial instruments; hooking into

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