• More On That Power8 Core Activation Deal

  November 13, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In days gone by, which unfortunately I remember very well, it was not that difficult for any of us to find out what the pricing on every single piece of hardware and software was that comprised an IBM system. The difficulty with IBM’s very sophisticated pricing databases was reckoning how the many pieces fit together to build a system.

  Pricing information for Power Systems iron is a bit harder to come by these days, and as far as I know the pricing databases that I had access to for more than two decades were re-routed to configurators that could only …

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• Coming Attractions: The IBM i App Dev Multi-Platform Show

  November 13, 2017 Dan Burger

  Multi-platform development is more vision than reality. Application development is still a siloed environment as programming work remains more isolated and less collaborative than visionary thinkers wish it to be. Therefore, the existence of multiple programming environments within an organization seldom reaches the goal of operating as a team. Much of the potential benefit of teamwork lingers out of reach. Instead of a single team with common operations, there are individual teams with individual operations.

  The good news is that it’s better than it used to be. Still, the fabric of multi-platform unity and the efficiencies it would bring to …

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• Guru: Faster Fetching, Revisited

  November 13, 2017 Paul Tuohy

  While visiting a client recently, I was shown how they were using a multi-row FETCH into a multiple-occurrence data structure to retrieve large sets of data. When I asked why they were not using a data structure array instead, I was referred to an IT Jungle article in which Ted Holt answered a question on whether it was faster to perform a row-at-a-time FETCH or a multi-row FETCH when using embedded SQL.

  Ted provided a comparison between a row-at-a-time FETCH, a multi-row FETCH into a data structure array, and a multi-row FETCH into a multiple-occurrence data structure. At the end …

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• As I See It: The Pros and Cons of Doing Nothing

  November 13, 2017 Victor Rozek

  In an era when information circles the globe in seconds, and distant events are posted and assessed within minutes, it is unimaginable that all of humanity owes an incalculable debt to a man who essentially remains unknown – for an action that didn’t occur.

  The year was 1983, a dangerous and bellicose time. Russia had just shot down a Korean Airliner with 269 people aboard, and the Cold War was still under full simmer. Khrushchev had once promised to bury the United States and now Reagan dubbed the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and vowed to “write the final pages” …

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• HATS Finds A RESTful ‘Swagger’

  November 13, 2017 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops will gain access to new API tooling on Thursday, when IBM ships a new release of its Rational Host Access Transformation Services (HATS) software that supports Swagger, a popular open-source specification for designing, generating, documenting, and consuming REST-based APIs.

  APIs built using the Representational State Transfer (REST) protocol have become the primary way that companies expose their applications and data in a programmatic way. By defining one’s application program interfaces (APIs) in the RESTful style – as opposed to, say, the older, XML-heavy Simple Object Application Protocol (SOAP) style – companies can join in, and partake of, …

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• HVR Data Integration Has A Place For IBM i

  November 8, 2017 Dan Burger

  Data integration is powering changes in enterprise computing. And although it doesn’t get talked about a lot, relational databases are major factors in the enterprise business analytics. Transactional processing systems that are the workhorses of enterprise applications such as ERP are rock solid and critical to data analytics regardless of the hoopla and hyperbole that “modern” databases create.

  Fitting a relational database into a heterogeneous environment that is pumped full of continuous data integration from a variety of sources can be a problem, but lessons are being learned as data integration becomes more platform inclusive at more companies.

  HVR Software …

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• IBM Teaches ACS New Tricks

  November 8, 2017 Alex Woodie

  Last month’s Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.2 and 7.3 brought a number of enhancements to the operating system and the database. But one should not overlook the new stuff coming to IBM i Access Client Solutions (ACS), including changes to the 5250 emulator, extensions for database access, and security enhancements.

  ACS, in case you forgot, is the new go-to client interface that administrators, developers, engineers, and power users alike can use for handling a range of IBM i tasks. The Java-based product, which IBM unveiled back in August 2012, bundles a bunch of useful goodies into a single product, …

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• IBM Champions Deadline Is Next Week

  November 8, 2017 Alex Woodie

  Who would you like to see become an IBM Champion? If there’s somebody in the IBM i or Power Systems community that you think can make a difference, then you have less than a week to nominate them.

  Every year, IBM selects a new group of champions across five areas, including analytics, cloud and cloud integration, collaboration solutions, Power, and IBM z. To be considered for the 2018 class of IBM Champions, a person must be nominated by Monday, November 13.

  So, what is an IBM Champion? According to IBM, the program “recognizes innovative thought leaders in the technical …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, November 8

  November 8, 2017 Dan Burger

  All things must pass. The pending sale of the IBM Rochester campus plays a sour note in the Minnesota town where it was once a landmark facility of civic pride. IBM has kept a small piece of what once was, but it’s a shadow of its former self.

  Monitor points to a couple of security-related feature articles this week. Controlling data in the cloud and measuring risk rather than vulnerabilities are two subjects worth closer examination. And under the heading of “Everyone has to Start Somewhere,” there’s the story of where it all began for Susan Gantner, one of the …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 19, Number 44

  November 8, 2017 Doug Bidwell

  The action this week in the IBM i PTF Guide is all in HIPERs for all three releases and in the Security groups for IBM i 7.2 and 7.3. Also, there is a recommended fix for IBM i 7.2, one of the baddies. The QMGtools were also updated for all releases.

  Also, we have an important reminder: Java 6 will be going out of support on December 31, 2017. So be sure to update your Java applications to Java 8 or Java 7 to ensure a safe and secure application environment.

  The PTF updates this week are as follows:

  IBM …

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