• Disk Array and Storage Software Sales Up Smartly in the Second Quarter

  September 15, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  While certain parts of the server market in specific geographies have been hit by economic pressures, price competition, and deal deferrals in recent months, thus putting downward pressure on shipment and revenue growth in the server space, disk arrays and related storage software have thus far been growing like everything is still right with the world. The second quarter, according to the analysts at IDC, was another good one for disk array makers. IDC reckons that external disk array sales rose by 16.7 percent in Q2, hitting $5.1 billion, and that total disk sales rose by a more modest

  …

  Read more

• Volvo IT Partners to Operate ERP Apps for IBS Customers

  September 15, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If you like the ERP software created by Swedish company International Business Systems but you don’t want to mess around with supporting the systems that run it, then IBS has an interesting services partner for you: Volvo IT, the IT services arm of the Swedish car maker of the same name. Last week, IBS, one of the few remaining free-standing ERP software makers that has a strong presence in the OS/400, i5/OS, and i platform, announced that it has tapped fellow countryman Volvo IT to provide operational support services for the IBS ERP suite. Volvo IT is to Volvo as

  …

  Read more

• The BladeCenter S Gets a New SAS RAID Disk Module

  September 15, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM wants small and medium businesses to adopt the blade server form factor, but the storage options available for blades are not really appropriate for SMB shops. On-blade disk capacity is limited to one or two drives, which means the blade cannot support lots of file capacity and certainly is inappropriate for supporting anything but the most ridiculously modest level of online transaction processing; and storage area networking is well beyond the budget of SMB shops, and a bit like killing a gnat with a cast iron frying pan. This is one reason why IBM has announced a SAS module

  …

  Read more

• The Efficiency of Varying Length Character Variables

  September 10, 2008 Jon Paris

  Remember the bad old days when dinosaurs still roamed the earth and the only way to build strings in RPG involved playing silly games with arrays? Or worse still, obscure combinations of MOVE operations? Thankfully those days are far behind us–although sadly there are still a few RPG/400 dinosaurs coding away! RPG IV introduced many powerful new string handling options, such as the %TRIMx family of BIFs, but even now there are capabilities in the language that few programmers fully exploit. One of my favorites is variable length fields. There are many good reasons to use these fields, but in

  …

  Read more

• SQL Assist: Powerful Interactive SQL

  September 10, 2008 Skip Marchesani

  The Run SQL Scripts function, a.k.a. the SQL Script Center or Script Center, is System i Navigator’s counterpart to Interactive SQL on the green screen side of the System i. The SQL Script Center allows the user to execute all or a subset of a script that contains one or more SQL statements and/or batch CL commands. It is part of the Navigator Database function and is an extremely powerful and flexible tool with lots of function that can have a very positive impact on application developer productivity. Interactive SQL has a very good multilevel SQL prompter that supports a

  …

  Read more

• Admin Alert: Getting into a i5/OS Restricted State

  September 10, 2008 Joe Hertvik

  There’s a special place for restricted state processing in the i5/OS or OS/400 world. In restricted state, administrators can apply upgrades, change core system parameters, backup the operating system and run special commands that affect partition configurations. This week, I’ll examine everything about restricted state processing, from why it exists, to how to enter and leave this core operating system function. The Beauty of Restriction Some i5/OS functions can’t be run while the system is active. That’s why IBM created restricted state processing, a feature that isn’t available in many other operating systems. Restricted state occurs when you end all

  …

  Read more

• SafeData Launches First Fully Managed Service for i5/OS HA

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  Have you had enough trouble trying to keep up with your i OS high availability (HA) environment? Not 100 percent sure that you could successfully execute a role swap when the hurricane is bearing down? If this sounds like your situation, you may want to consider the HA management service that was recently announced by SafeData. As part of the program, SafeData will take over all aspects of managing your iTera HA or MIMIX environment, and for about $20,000 per year, guarantee that it will be ready for a role swap. While improvements have been made to i5/OS HA

  …

  Read more

• Aldon Brings PHP Closer Into Change Management Fold

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  Aldon has been bit by the PHP bug. Last week, the developer of application lifecycle management (ALM) software announced that it’s now offering a plug-in for Zend‘s Studio for Eclipse that will allow System i shops and other PHP users the capability to keep track of all of their development in a single, integrated repository. It’s another notch in PHP’s enterprise belt, and further evidence that PHP is making headway in the System i market. Not all of Aldon’s customers are System i shops. But well over 50 percent are, so when Aldon makes a change or supports a

  …

  Read more

• HiT’s DBMoto Gains Enterprise Replication Features

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  Companies looking to move large amounts of data among various databases with the least amount of hassle may want to take a look at DBMoto version 6.5, a newly released data replication tool from HiT Software. With this release, DBMoto gains more enterprise features, such as the capability to automatically change the order of data replication to adhere to the constraints of referential integrity inside a database. More detailed log data, collection of metadata, and speedier data replication and data migration round out the release. DBMoto is a Windows-based data replication tool that moves data among nearly 20 different

  …

  Read more

• AmeriVault Debuts DR Service for i OS Servers

  September 9, 2008 Alex Woodie

  AmeriVault is now in the i OS disaster recovery (DR) business. Last month, the Waltham, Massachusetts, provider of online vaulting and DR services, unveiled RestartIT-VDR iSeries, a new offering that combines remote backups and hot site services, enabling i OS servers (and the businesses that depend on them) to get back online within hours after a disaster. There are several components to AmeriVault’s new RestartIT-VDR iSeries offering. The service utilizes customers’ Internet connections to remotely back up their i OS (formerly i5/OS and OS/400) servers to one of AmeriVault’s i OS servers located in one of the company’s data centers.

  …

  Read more

Previous Articles Next Articles