• Four Hundred Monitor, September 8

  September 8, 2021 Jenny Thomas

  After the last few slow news weeks of summer, we have finally reached announcement season. IBM kicked it off today with the Big News of the week being the announcement on Power10. The long-awaited Power10 chip is designed to improve energy efficiency, capacity and performance to meet the unique needs of enterprise hybrid cloud computing. And we know that IBM is all in on the hybrid cloud. We’re all excited to follow this story and see where this new technology takes us in the months ahead. But don’t take my word for it. Get the real story from IT Jungle’s …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 36

  September 8, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  With the Labor Day holiday behind us, summer is officially over and it is now time for the world to get back to work and the kids and grandkids to get back to school. It is still quiet out there in PTF Land, but with Power10 machines due today, we suspect we will see some updates that enable the new big iron Power E1080 system. We will let you know as soon as we know.

  In the meantime, here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level:

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • Temporary Storage PTFs

  PTF Groups 7.3:

  • Temporary

  … Read more

• Profound Logic Speeds Up Mobile Client

  September 1, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Organizations that adopt the latest release of Profound Logic’s mobile client for iOS will find it runs significantly faster than older versions — up to 300 percent, the company says. An update to Apple’s newest Web browser rendering engine is the key behind the speedup in Profound UI Mobile Client version 2.8, the company says.

  Profound UI Mobile Client is a development tool and client runtime that enables organizations to create native iOS applications. It works with both Profound UI as a front-end for RPG applications (with integration handled via IBM’s RPG Open Access) as well as Profound.js, the …

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• Zebra Pivots Into AI, Robotics with Acquisitions

  September 1, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Zebra Technologies is a well-known provider of barcode printers, RFID scanners, and mobile computers, which puts it squarely in the data path for manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. With Monday’s announced acquisition of artificial intelligence (AI) software provider Antuit.ai, Zebra is positioning itself for the emerging age of intelligent automation solutions.

  Antuit.ai is a Dallas, Texas-based provider of an AI-powered demand forecasting solution that’s designed to ensure that companies have the right product in the right place at the right time and at the right price. The company’s software as a service (SaaS) offering is used by consumer processed goods (CPG) …

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• Want to Talk IBM i OSS? Head Up the Ryver

  September 1, 2021 Alex Woodie

  The world of open source moves quickly, and it’s no different on the IBM i platform, where open source is being rapidly adopted by companies large and small. IBM i professionals who want to keep up to speed with the latest may want to check out a community of IBM i open source enthusiasts that was created on Ryver.

  Ryver (pronounced “river”) is a next-gen communications portal that’s taking on Slack, Microsoft Teams, and others. Like chatrooms and mailing lists, Ryver allows people to have open discussions, as well as private chats and focused conversations. There is also the …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, September 1

  September 1, 2021 Jenny Thomas

  The pages of the calendar keep turning as we grind our way through this year and slip into September. As we head into the homestretch of 2021, the news cycle seems to be picking up and we have the fall conference season to look forward to, and while many events remain virtual, it’s still a great way to link up with colleagues and keep up with the latest around the industry. We’re also seeing things look up for IBM, as you’ll note in some of our Top Stories below, with the exception of some trouble in Texas. Read on to …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 35

  September 1, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  The summer is coming to a meteorological and practical end as we approach Labor Day, and then we make the long run to the end of the year. With new Power10-based machines around the corner, we expect to see updates to the IBM i platform in the coming weeks. But for now, it is pretty quiet with some minor tweaks here and there.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level:

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • HIPERs (High Impact/Pervasive)
  • Backup Recovery Solutions

  PTF Groups 7.3:

  • HIPERs (High Impact/Pervasive)
  • Backup Recovery Solutions

  PTF Groups 7.2:

  • HIPERs (High Impact/Pervasive)
  • Backup

  … Read more

• GraphQL’s Emerging Role in Modernization of Monolithic Applications

  August 30, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Every now and then, a technology emerges that lifts up everything around it. GraphQL has the potential to be a technology like that, and that’s good news for customers running older, established applications, such as those that run on IBM iron.

  IBM’s mainframe and its midrange IBM i server often are maligned as old, washed-up, legacy platforms, but people who say that are missing a key distinction: it’s usually not the server that’s old. In most cases, it’s the application that was first deployed in the Clinton Administration (or earlier) that is the problem.

  Companies typically have many reasons for …

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• Software Change Management Starts – And Ends – With Security

  August 30, 2021 Alan Brown

  In science fiction, the problem with networked computers is that eventually they get smart. In the real world, and at least so far in the 21^st century, the problem with network computers is that the very act of networking them means that they can be hacked into, and then ransomware and other kinds of malware can wreak their havoc.

  There is a lot to be said for open source software and the comfort that comes from having lots of eyes looking over the code for any potential weirdness. While we acknowledge that not all open source software is written …

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• Guru: Another Red Flag – Joining On Expressions

  August 30, 2021 Ted Holt

  One would think that a given datum, for example a sales order number, would be defined identically in the various database tables in which it is found within an organization, but one might be wrong. I have on many occasions faced the challenge of joining two or more tables on unmatched data types.

  But it gets worse than that. Sometimes joins involve expressions, which may consist of mathematical operations and/or invocations of functions, both intrinsic and user-written. As with the word DISTINCT in a SELECT, the presence of expression in a join sends up a little red flag that …

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