• Dataram Hit by the Economic Downturn, But Ready to Do Biz

  March 2, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  John Freeman, the president and chief executive officer at clone memory maker Dataram, sure picked a tough time to come on board when he took the helm last May. Almost immediately, the economy went on the rocks, but Dataram, which makes relatively inexpensive memory for lots of different servers (including IBM’s System i, System p, and Power Systems iron) is hanging in there despite the tough economy. For the fiscal third quarter ended January 31, Dataram reported sales of $5.64 million, down 15.6 percent compared to the year-ago quarter. Even though the company trimmed back engineering costs, research and

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• New IBM i-Related Redbooks, and a Bunch More in the Works

  March 2, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In the past few weeks, IBM and the team of techies who put together its Redbooks, Redpapers, and Technotes have updated two relevant i technical documents and are cooking up an important one that all i shops should keep their eyes out for later this year. The IBM BladeCenter JS12 and JS22 Implementation Guide, SG24-7655-00, is a good starting point for your nightly reading if you want to install i 6.1 AIX, or Linux on IBM’s JS12 or JS22 Power6-based blade servers. This blade guide, which came out on December 29 last year, was updated with new information

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• A Bevy of BIFs: %SCAN and %CHECK

  February 25, 2009 Jon Paris

  From recent questions on Internet lists, and from one-on-one discussions with RPG programmers, it seems that many are confused about the usage and operation of a number of built-in functions (BIFs). In particular the BIFs %XLATE, %REPLACE, %SCAN, and %CHECK seem to cause a lot of confusion. In this tip, I focus on %CHECK and %SCAN. I’ll look at the other misunderstood pair, XLATE and REPLACE, in a future tip. The %SCAN BIF has been with us since V3R7, when it was introduced along with %EDITC and %EDITW, to improve string handling. %CHECK, on the other hand, is a relative

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• Easily Avoid a Common Data Structure Error

  February 25, 2009 Ted Holt

  A shop with which I’m acquainted had an undesirable experience recently. A program that, to my understanding, had been working properly, ended abnormally. The error could have easily been avoided, had the programmer followed one simple rule of thumb. Take a look at the following program fragment. D MyData ds D OneField 4a D TwoField 7p 0 D RedField 3s 0 D BlueField 5u 0 D D Number s 15p 5 /free Number = TwoField; If the calculation is the first executable statement in the program, what is the new value of Number? The answer is that Number never gets

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• Admin Alert: Robot/SCHEDULE’s DST Work-Around and More

  February 25, 2009 Joe Hertvik

  Rather than cover one topic this week, let’s look at three issues that recently crept into my in-box. I’ll explain some additional work you may need to perform to keep Help/Systems’ Robot/SCHEDULE software running fat and happy during Daylight Saving Time changes; go over my updated list of i5/OS system monitoring tools; and expand on what type of post-upgrade backups you should perform after an i5/OS software upgrade. Another Daylight Savings Problem To Worry About United States Daylight Savings Time (DST) begins this year on March 8, 2009. Believe it or not, it’s only been since i5/OS V5R3 that IBM

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• CDW Taps Linoma for Database Encryption

  February 25, 2009 Alex Woodie

  When CDW needed a way to encrypt the data in its i5/OS business applications, the computer retailer turned to Linoma Software and its Crypto Complete offering. While the product provided a relatively straightforward method for automating the encryption of fields in DB2/400, the real challenge for CDW was determining which System i programs and users should have access to the decrypted data. CDW is a longtime and satisfied user of the IBM System i midrange server. The company, primarily operates as an a direct sales, Internet sales, and catalog retailer of technology solutions for business, government, and education, shipping hundreds

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• Speedware Says RPG-to-.NET Code Converter Is the Real Deal

  February 24, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Want to get from RPG to .NET without a lot of muss and fuss? You might be able to, now that Speedware is reselling and servicing Sykora-ML‘s ML-iMPACT code converter in the North American market. Skykor-ML claims the tool can convert 100 percent of RPG functions into fully maintainable C# or Java. That’s quite unusual and special for a code converter, according to Speedware officials, who have decades of experience in the IBM midrange and mainframe migration business. The ML-iMPACT tool is one of the most advanced code converters that Speedware director of marketing Chris Koppe has ever seen.

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• Tripwire Adds i OS Support to Configuration Control Software

  February 24, 2009 Dan Burger

  Regulatory compliance, increased accountability, and providing audit-ability have tightened the screws on some otherwise sloppy corporate practices. It’s also put pressure on IT departments to take care of a lot of the messes. And once again, we have issues relating to monitoring multiple platforms in an effective manner. Moving a step closer to cracking this nut, Tripwire has added support for IBM i (formerly i5/OS and OS/400) to its change control software called Tripwire Enterprise. Many organizations that have been wrestling with compliance issues looked first to the quickest way to compliance, which often took platform-specific approaches. Every silo had

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• Automated Routing Streamlines Deliveries, Lowers Distribution Costs

  February 24, 2009 Andy Hedrick

  When Southland Sod Farms decided to automate its fleet routing operations, the company knew that two years worth of coding mathematical algorithms and integrating various geographic tools were not in the plans. The order data needed for planning delivery routes was already in place on the AS/400. The goal was adding an optimization tool that would streamline route planning and reduce the miles and hours needed for making deliveries. Among the options was Appian Logistics‘ Direct Route system. It became the choice partly because of its track record: two decades in the transportation business and more than 800 locations

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• iEnterprises CRM Goes On-Demand with Help from IBM

  February 24, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Hope springs anew in the IT business. For the last five to 10 years, there’s been plenty of hope in the areas of software as a service (SaaS), open source software, service oriented architecture (SOA), CRM, and mobile computing, but it mostly failed to live up to the hype. Now, as a result of a partnership between iEnterprises and IBM, System i shops may gain access to advanced CRM software that utilize these technologies, without incurring the costs of building it themselves. iEnterprises is a Murray Hill, New Jersey-based CRM software developer that was founded by John Carini, who

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