• Modernization Slides Down IBM i Priority List

  January 15, 2018 Dan Burger

  Many organizations that depend on mission critical applications running on IBM i have modernization on their agendas. Decisions need to be made whether they can continue as-is with applications, databases, and systems or modernization or migration will serve them best in the years ahead. Higher levels of efficiency and adaptability are within reach, but only with significant planning and budgeting.

  Profound Logic, an application modernization software company with an IBM i history that predates the term modernization, has just released its second in a series of modernization white papers based on surveys of IBM i shops – most of …

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• Guru: Continue A Sequence When Inserting

  January 15, 2018 Ted Holt

  Carlos writes, “Hey, Ted! I have a question regarding inserting rows into a file that is keyed on a sequence number. I need to insert more rows, and I need the new rows to have the next available sequence numbers. Can I perform this task with an SQL INSERT statement, or do I have to use record-level access?”

  If the sequence number were defined as an identity column, Carlos would have no problem. Unfortunately, the sequence number column is a simple numeric field. Fortunately, I was able to give Carlos two solutions. It would not surprise me if you can …

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• As I See It: Resolutions, Or Let’s Make A Deal

  January 15, 2018 Victor Rozek

  It’s a new year and hope again rears its fickle head. Gyms are full of bulging spandex, as the clanging of free-weights punctuates the incessant whir of stationary bikes. Bad habits, so recently embraced, are once again under attack. Like truth in White House press briefings, they have become an unhealthy indulgence that needs to be banished. We’ll be drinking less, exercising more, and eating smaller quantities of just the right foods. And since we’re sober and thinking clearly, we’ll save more money and quit obsessing about how many people love us on social media.

  For a few months, at …

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• Rimini Street Finally Finds Its Way to Wall Street

  January 15, 2018 Alex Woodie

  As 2017 was coming to a close, Rimini Street quietly completed its quest to become a publicly traded company. But the firm, which provides third party support for DB2 for i and JD Edwards customers, didn’t go public through an initial public offering. Instead, it landed a listing on the Nasdaq by acquiring a company that already had one.

  In October, Rimini Street completed the merger with GP Investments Acquisition Corp, a so-called “blank check” company that was formed in 2015 specifically for the purpose of effecting a merger or acquisition in the United States or Europe. The company had …

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• Power Systems And The Spectre And Meltdown Threats

  January 10, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Speculative execution is something that has been part of modern processors for well over a decade, and while it is hard to quantify how much of a performance benefit this collection of techniques have delivered, it is obviously significant enough that all CPUs, including IBM Power and System z chips, have them. And that, as the new Spectre and Meltdown security holes that were announced by Google on January 3 show, turns out to be a big problem.

  Without getting too deep into the technical details, there are many different ways to implement speculative execution, which is used to …

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• Three IBM i Trends To Watch This Year

  January 10, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Happy New Year! As we roll out of bed and shake off the cobwebs of 2017, it’s worth taking some time to think about what 2018 will bring to the IBM i ecosystem, and what it could mean to IBM i professionals, in hopes of getting off to a hot (or maybe just less cold) start to the new year.

  Here are three big trends to keep an eye on as the months gradually turn into a year. It starts off with everybody’s favorite topic, security.

  1. Focus on Security

  When the calendar flipped to 2017, there was a palpable …

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• Syncsort Strikes Again, Buys Trader’s For HA

  January 10, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Syncsort yesterday announced the acquisition of Trader’s, the French firm behind the Quick-EDD line of high availability software for the IBM i server. It’s the second deal for an IBM i software firm in as many months for Syncsort, which nabbed HA giant Vision Solutions last summer.

  The deal for Trader’s gives Syncsort and Vision Solutions a third major high availability product to sell, in addition to the iTera Availability and MIMIX Availability products. Perhaps more importantly, Trader’s gives Syncsort a stronger global presence, particularly in Europe but also Asia.

  “The addition of Trader’s extends our market-leading position in providing …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, January 10

  January 10, 2018 Dan Burger

  Simultaneously looking forward and looking back does not require eyes in the back of your head. It does require good vision in both directions though. What we’ve learned in the past year (and the years before that) are lessons that are useful in moving organizations forward. Maybe you missed some technology that came to market under your radar. That’s where a guy like Paul Tuohy comes in handy. Tuohy doesn’t miss much when it comes to IBM i application development. Here’s what he saw in the past year that can be useful in the years ahead. And there’s more than …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, The Last Four Weeks

  January 10, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  IT Jungle went on hiatus in the middle of December, as it does every year, but the PTF beat just keeps on rolling even if the presses don’t. So that means we have a backlog of IBM i PTF Guides to get through here in the first week of publishing The Four Hundred here in 2018.

  Let’s take them in chronological order so we don’t lose our minds.

  In Volume 19, Number 50 of the IBM i PTF Guide, there was not much happening that week because the holiday season was in even fuller effect. I found the following …

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• Looking Ahead To The IBM i New Year

  January 8, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There is always plenty to worry about in the world; that is what a world is for, after all. Human beings are both blessed and cursed by their frontal lobes, and all of us are engaged in some kind of prediction and prognostication in our daily lives, from little things like what someone is going to say next to big things like what we want to do with the rest of our lives. Running scenarios and simulations is how we make our way in the world, and it is both fun and useful so long as you don’t take it …

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