• ARCAD Debuts RPG Code Checker

  October 3, 2018 Alex Woodie

  If you write RPG, or know somebody who does, then you realize that mistakes can and will happen. However, beyond the obvious syntax errors, which should be detected immediately by the code editor, are instances where the code is sloppy or just poorly written. Those are the instances where ARCAD Software hopes to help with its new CodeChecker offering.

  ARCAD-CodeChecker, as the product is officially called, does just that: Detect poor quality RPG code before it makes it into production. If you’ve coded a bug into the program, made a design error, or taken 1,000 lines to write something that …

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• Inking A Solution To Sticky Warehouse Dilemma

  October 3, 2018 Alex Woodie

  When the forklift drivers at Fujifilm Speciality Ink Systems had trouble maintaining a WiFi connection in the warehouse, the company turned to its network supplier. But when the network supplier dragged its feet on providing sessions stickiness, the IT folks at FSIS found their own solution, which involved transforming its IBM i software into a modern Web application.

  Fujifilm Speciality Ink Systems develops and manufactures a range of inks and consumables for a variety of printing processes, including inkjet, screen, textile, label, and packaging. The UK subsidiary of the Japanese imaging conglomerate designs, manufactures, and ships its ink products from …

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• Cloud Data Migration Service Launched For IBM i

  October 3, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Companies that want to move data from their IBM i server into the public cloud environment have a new solution available from Accur8 Software, which last week debuted a new data migration as a service (DMaaS) offering based on its integration platform.

  According to Accur8 Software, the new Data Migration as a Service (DMaaS) offering provides a way for customers to migrate data from Db2 for i to public cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

  Microsoft and Amazon – as well as Google Cloud Compute, often cited as the third main public cloud platform …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, October 3

  October 3, 2018 Jenny Thomas

  If you need the latest news on the IBM i, you know to come to IT Jungle. And for the latest news around the IT community, you come to Four Hundred Monitor. There never seems to be a lack of news related to IBM and this week we see Big Blue is making all sorts of headlines. We also were able to round up some blogs that do relate to the IBM i, so be sure to look in the Redbooks, White Papers, Blogs, and Other Resources section for a little light reading on COBOL, clouds and blockchain.

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 39

  October 3, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  Readers of IT Jungle already know what’s been happening in the IBM i ecosystem, so let’s take a look at what’s new in PTF Land this week. As we all know, IBM i 6.1 extended support ended on September 30, but post life cycle options are now available so contact your next level of support for further information. ECS also has new recommended fixes for both 7.3 and 7.2, so please check the link in our guide for details. We did not get any new defectives for the week of September 29, but here is the rundown on the last …

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• The NUMA NUMA [Song] Tax

  October 1, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When you have a wafer of chips, at least in theory all of the transistors cost the same on the wafer. But sometimes, when transistors perform certain functions, they are worth more. And in some cases, such as the electronics that enable the coupling of multiple cores on a die across a shared L3 cache or that allow the ganging up of processors across multiple sockets that allows for larger and shared main memory for applications to run in, those circuits are worth a lot more.

  This lashing together of compute components across shared memories – Non-Uniform Cache Access, or …

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• Can ERP Vendors Deliver On Industry 4.0 Expectations?

  October 1, 2018 Alex Woodie

  In the IT business, innovation is king. If you fail to keep up, you run the risk of falling behind and becoming stale. There’s where ERP as a product category found itself thanks to the advent of cloud computing, and now we’re on the cusp of finding out if the ERP market can deliver on the next set of emerging capabilities — machine learning, artificial intelligence, and IoT – which industry watchers have termed Industry 4.0.

  We’re at an interesting inflection point in enterprise software at the moment, in particular how well-established players react to rapid technological innovation. In the …

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• Guru: The Binding Directory Is The Key

  October 1, 2018 Ted Holt

  Hey, Ted:

  We license a software package to handle email on our IBM i system. When I write an RPG program that uses those routines, I can’t compile with the usual Create Bound RPG Program (CRTBNDRPG) command. Instead I have to use a two-step process — Create RPG Module (CRTRPGMOD) followed by Create Program (CRTPGM). Can you explain why this is? Even better, can you tell me if there is a way that I’m not aware of to compile with CRTBNDRPG?

  — David

  David continued, “I use CRTBNDCL and CRTBNDRPG, as they get me what I need, otherwise I am …

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• Advice For The IBM i Shop Buying X86 Servers

  October 1, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We spend a lot of time at The Four Hundred talking about the Power Systems servers and the IBM i platform, but it we also keep a keen eye on what is going on in the rest of the IT world, particularly when it comes to alternative server hardware and transaction processing and data analytics platforms. There are many, many ways to skin the cats that are the backbone of the business.

  Ok, so that was a bad metaphor. It happens. Like a line of bad code.

  Anyway, it is not lost on us that somewhere around 95 percent of …

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• The Herculean Task Of Applying Spectre/Meltdown Patches

  October 1, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The Spectre and Meltdown speculative execution vulnerabilities are, as our resident chief technology officer and author of the weekly IBM i PTF Guide, Doug Bidwell, is fond of saying, the gift that just keeps on giving.

  We had the shock of finding out in January that there were vulnerabilities in all processor architectures that use speculative execution in their instruction chewing engines – that means all existing processors, by the way. There are none that do not use this very useful architectural feature. And then we had the wait to see what the industry would do to patch these …

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