• Unintended Consequences: When Software Installations Go Off The Track

  April 2, 2018 Dan Burger

  It’s not like we never hear about the positive benefits of software upgrades or new software installations. There is no shortage of case studies that tell those stories. But the unintended consequences that gut punch implementations get a fair share of attention wherever IT professionals gather. These are usually complex and expensive projects where anything that goes wrong is magnified, but wounded projects know no boundaries. Workflow barriers, surprising conflicts, and disappearing functionality curse projects of all descriptions.

  Do you have an implementation specialist on staff or a trusted consultant to lead you to software implementation victory, or do you …

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• Guru: LTRIM + RTRIM > TRIM

  April 2, 2018 Ted Holt

  When IBM enhances SQL for my favorite database management system, I feel so happy I could dance like Karlos Klaumannsmoller selling diabetes medicine. It is my pleasure today to let you know (in case you don’t already know) that IBM has once again enhanced two SQL functions to make them as powerful as their RPG counterparts.

  The functions to which I refer are LTRIM (left trim) and RTRIM (right trim). Until recently these functions could only remove blanks (or hexadecimal zeros, for some data types) from the beginning (left) or end (right) of a string. IBM recently added …

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• Power9 Servers Get Legacy Adapter Support

  April 2, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It takes an ecosystem to put a system into the field, and not everything that needs to be an option on a system is available on the Day One launch. To that end, IBM this week announced some legacy PCI-Express peripherals for linking into Fibre Channel SAN and traditional SAS storage on the new Power9 “ZZ” entry systems that were announced back in February and that started shipping a few weeks ago.

  In announcement letter 118-043, we see the first item is a pair of Fibre Channel adapters that uses the older PCI-Express 2.0 protocol to deliver 8 Gb/sec …

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• Pay Attention To JDK And WebSphere Release Support

  April 2, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM i shops don’t have to use Big Blue’s WebSphere Application Server middleware to create Java, since some of the Java functions are built into the Apache Web server built into the operating system and open source programs like the Tomcat server, while not still supported, are nonetheless sometimes still used. Still other shops don’t go for the full-on WebSphere Application Server, but use the Express Edition that is bundled on the machine to provide a certain level of automation for Java workloads.

  IBM has been warning customers that they have to keep current on Java Development Kit (JDK) releases, …

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• SEA Launches New Job Scheduler For IBM i

  March 28, 2018 Alex Woodie

  When it’s not talking System z mainframe tools, Software Engineering of America (SEA) has traditionally involved itself with IBM i security and messaging tools. But the New York software firm has expanded its repertoire to IBM i job scheduling with the recent launch of absScheduler.

  The new software was developed by SEA to be a “next-generation” job scheduler that can handle batch workloads across one or more IBM i partitions or systems. The software, which was developed by the same IBM i development team that developed the absMessage product over a decade ago, features both a 5250 green-screen interface and …

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• IBM To Resell VTLs With Better Fit Than ProtecTIER

  March 28, 2018 Dan Burger

  IBM has added two virtual tape libraries designed for IBM i environments to its reseller list. The VTLs, produced by Dynamic Solutions International, are designed for companies utilizing deduplication for data storage in circumstances where data is rapidly expanding and data storage investments are being preserved. The VTLs are expected to fill a niche that IBM’s ProtecTIER appliances have been unable to serve.

  As data storage requirements increase, storage modules can be added to existing solutions, which allows data storage to scale. Dynamic Solution International‘s model DSI425-D24 was designed for small and midsize IBM i environments, while the DSI420-EVD …

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• IBM Patches Another BIND Flaw In IBM i

  March 28, 2018 Alex Woodie

  A serious flaw has been discovered in the BIND networking service that could be used to launch a denial of service attack against impacted servers, including IBM i. IBM patched the flaw in every version of the OS from IBM i 6.1 to 7.3 with a program temporary fix (PTF) made available earlier this month. IBM also patched a serious flaw in WebSphere that could let information leak out.

  According to the IBM security bulletin issued March 12, the ISC BIND flaw known as CVE-2017-3145 has the potential to allow a remote attacker to crash a vulnerable server by sending …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 28

  March 28, 2018 Dan Burger

  The Monitor doesn’t often include videos in its “Top Stories From Outside The Jungle” section, but exceptions are made when videos are exceptional. This one, from the recent RPG & DB2 Summit, is in the category of balancing work and fun.

  Last week, IBM hosted a conference it called “Think.” As you might expect, Watson was in the spotlight during many of the keynote addresses and sessions. Some of the reporters liked what they saw, and some were less than impressed. Also in Monitor this week are articles touting the benefit of agile development and warning of …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 12

  March 28, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  After the last couple months of announcements and Spectre/Meltdown (SM) mayhem, IBM is catching up on fixes. This week we have new HIPERs, Security, BRMS, and Hardware groups this week.

  Speaking of Spectre and Meltdown, there is no new news or updates, but IBM has finally merged the SM PTFs into the normal “Group” methodology we work with every week. So, to get current on SM for your appropriate release apply the below levels (or higher):

  	7.1 Groups	7.2 Groups	7.3 Groups
  Tech Refresh	N/A	SF99717-008	SF99727-004
  Security	SF99708-079	SF99718-059	SF99728-024
  HIPER	SF99709-217	SF99719-116	SF99729-053

  March 24, 2018: Volume …

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• The Road Ahead For Power Is Paved With Bandwidth

  March 26, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The gap between what most IBM i customers need from Power Systems hardware – particularly when it comes to compute capacity – and what Big Blue can deliver has been widening since about the Power7 generation back in 2010. But, thanks in large measure to the slow down in Moore’s Law advances in chip manufacturing processes, the gap is going to start closing. Not so much because IBM wants it to, but rather because of the limits of physics.

  And, given that the IBM i platform is a database platform that mainly does transaction processing and analytics, IBM’s shift away …

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