• The IBM i Roadmap Leads To A Familiar Place

  March 19, 2018 Dan Burger

  Reeve Fritchman is working on project that he believes might tell the future of the IBM i. It’s a complex mainframe-to-IBM i migration. The core applications were written by an in-house team of developers, many who are still on the staff but on the verge of retirement. The hardware maintenance is expensive, and a hardware upgrade would be absurdly expensive. The bills from CA for automation software are staggering.

  “The demise of the mainframe in small to medium size shops could be a precursor of what will happen in the AS/400 environment – fewer skilled workers, expensive, and better technology …

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• Guru: Beyond The Basics Of Code Conversion

  March 19, 2018 Paul Tuohy

  Today many RPG programmers are tasked with having to modernize existing programs. These programs often have long and varied history. They may be RPG IV programs or they may be RPG IV programs that were originally RPG II or RPG III programs, or any permutation or combination you can imagine. There are tools available to help us convert from fixed-form RPG to free-form RPG and, within RDi, we have options to help us reformat code and refactor variable names. But these tools can only go so far. We finally reach the point where we have to put fingers to the …

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• Ensono Embiggens With Wipro Data Center Deal

  March 19, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Ensono isn’t the most well-known datacenter operator in the world, either in the open systems or mainframe/IBM i space where it currently operates. But thanks to its recently announced deal with Wipro to buy eight Wipro data centers for nearly half a billion dollars, the Chicago-based company is putting itself on the map.

  If the name Ensono is news to you, you are not alone. The company was formed just two years ago when Arkansas-based Acxiom spun out its IT Outsourcing (ITO) division to create a standalone entity with four data centers in the US, three in Europe, and $300 …

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• Sundry Power Systems Announcements, Here And There

  March 19, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The big Power Systems announcements came out in February, but IBM always has some things that need to get done. And last week, it wrapped up a few loose ends with some nips and tucks in the product line.

  In announcement letter 118-030, we learned all about them. First off, IBM has expanded the storage capacity of the Power-based CS822 servers, which are special version of the Power S822 based on Power8 chips that are designed to support the hyperconverged storage stack from Nutanix. We told you all about the CS821 and CS822 servers for running the Nutanix Enterprise …

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• Peeking Outside Of The IBM i Bubble

  March 14, 2018 Alex Woodie

  It can be tempting to continue doing what you’ve done before. After all, there’s safety and security in familiarity. But when it comes to planning your future and reaching your goals as a technology professional, you should not limit your opportunities, whether it’s learning a new technology or even being open to jobs in different states.

  That’s the message from Patrick Staudacher, an IBM i recruiter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who has witnessed the evolution of the midrange platform and the professionals who make it run since he started in the unique trade 20 years ago. For many years, the job …

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• A Code Inspector For RPG

  March 14, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Programmers who are tasked with maintaining applications often spend 50 percent or more of their time just figuring out how programs work, taking away valuable time they could spend on other tasks. Now a company called i400hub.com is promoting a new tool called RPG/Code Inspector that helps programmers reclaim that lost time.

  RPG/Code Inspector is a program comprehension tool created by longtime IBM i developer Steve Kilner that’s designed to help programmers discover what’s going on in their RPG applications quickly, without going line-by-line through the source code. The software automates several tasks for programmers, including:

  • Analyzing and cross-referencing how

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• Budget Relief For IBM i Monitoring Software

  March 14, 2018 Dan Burger

  Keeping it simple isn’t always so simple. But creating efficiency at a low cost without adding layers of complexity and extra features (often unused) is a product attribute that gets a lot of attention. A good example of this is Kisco Information Systems’ event monitoring software: iEventMonitor.

  Kisco just released Release 3 of iEventMonitor, a tool that monitors prominent IBM i job and message queues plus storage and CPU. It sends out alerts when things go astray. Because of its simplicity the price of iEventMonitor R3 is just $495 for a single LPAR or $795 for an unlimited number of …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 14

  March 14, 2018 Dan Burger

  What does your IT budget say about your organization? Are you a comfortable fit in the status quo or are you budgeting for the future knowing that status quo and a one-dollar bill won’t even get you a cup of coffee?

  And if your vision of the IT future includes open source, start gathering information by reading articles linked to Monitor. This week we have advice on setting up an open source project office and a comparison of the top two containers for transporting applications between systems. IBM’s Watson CTO also talks about AI ethics and responsibility.

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 10

  March 14, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  The good times keep on rolling with the Spectre Meltdown (SM) updates. There are new HIPER and Security Groups this week, and most of the required PTFs are on one group or the other, except for one in each release. If you need to tackle it this week, the recommendation is to apply both the HIPER and Security groups, plus the one additional fix, for each release.

  Depending on your system and its proc/mem configuration, it will take from 15 minutes to 30 minutes longer to apply the Tech Refresh.

  MQ for IBM i also has a new Group level …

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• HelpSystems Has A New Number One Investor

  March 12, 2018 Alex Woodie

  A controlling stake in HelpSystems is set to be sold to HGGC, a Silicon Valley private equity firm with $4.3 billion in assets. The deal, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of the month, was presented as a recapitalization of HelpSystems and a ratification of its on-going strategy to grow the business through acquisitions and organic growth.

  The deal will keep current owners of HelpSystems – including H.I.G. Capital, Split Rock Partners, the software company’s management team, and employees of HelpSystems – on board as owners under the company’s new shareholder structure. HGGC‘s piece …

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