• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 19, Number 38

  September 27, 2017 Doug Bidwell

  Hello fellow IBM i-ers. (Yes, that looks ugly.) This week in the IBM i PTF Guide, you will discover that the Java Group for V6R1 has been updated. Even though V6R1 for IBM i is no longer supported, the licensed programs for that release may be on a different support level.

  By the way, Java Group has been updated in all releases, not just for V6R1, as have the HIPERs and the Backup Recovery Groups. Lots of PTF action this week. Best news is no new Defective PTFs since September 8!

  A big “Thank You” to Charles Charalambou for …

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• The Necessity Of A Power Systems 911

  September 25, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  People are starting to talk about the future, and in some cases perhaps impending, Power9 systems from IBM and its OpenPower partners. The chatter is about machines with two, four, eight, or 16 processors, so far at least. But the one thing I am not hearing anyone talk about is an entry Power box, either with or without the Cognitive Systems label, that has a modestly configured processor complex that is suitable for the IBM i workloads in the current customer base and yet allows them to affordably and quickly expand their capacity to absorb more and more workloads in …

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• Evaluating Your IBM i Encryption Options

  September 25, 2017 Alex Woodie

  In the wake of the Equifax breach, companies are taking a hard look at their security practices, including the use of encryption that renders data unreadable. While database encryption is not a panacea for securing a Db2 for i database – especially if there are other vulnerabilities in an IBM i system – it can play an important role in protecting sensitive data from leaking out into the world.

  Encryption has emerged as a topic in the wake of the massive data breach at Equifax, which lost critical data like names, addresses, and Social Security numbers for 143 million Americans, …

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• Guru: IBM i, .Net, and XMLSERVICE Program and Subprocedure Calls

  September 25, 2017 Richard Schoen

  Our businesses have years of existing IBM i legacy applications that contain priceless business logic. We need to re-purpose that code without re-writing so our existing IBM i business logic can be accessed and used by our desktop applications, web applications, web services, and mobile device applications, which often expect JSON or XML-based data. Instead of re-writing your existing business logic, surface it so the code can be called as-is.

  For this article we’ll focus on the XMLSERVICE remote program call and remote subprocedure calls that can be used to call existing logic based in existing RPG, COBOL and CL …

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• Watson In The Real World

  September 25, 2017 Dan Burger

  The fundamental value of IBM’s Watson technology and the ability to put it to work effectively in IBM i shops is still being sorted out. Certainly, technical challenges exist, but that’s not unique to new technology like cognitive computing. IT by nature is challenging. Learning to do more with technology that’s been around for years also has its challenges. Acquiring knowledge, skills and best practices should be, and generally is, an ongoing habit.

  Sharing what we know about solving challenges helps everyone in the community. So it is with Watson and IBM i. Who is making it work and who …

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• IBM Inks In End Of Support For Power6 And Power7 Iron

  September 25, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In case you didn’t notice it, IBM is getting ready to embark on a new generation of systems, based on its “Nimbus” and “Cumulus” Power9 chips.

  When new gear is entering the product catalog, IBM has a few tools to help encourage customers to move ahead rather than sitting tight. First, it tends to withdraw the older stuff – in this case systems using Power6, Power6+, Power 7, and Power7+ processors – from marketing. That sends the signal that customers won’t be able to get new processor cards, memory cards, and other peripherals for these machines. Then, IBM can raise …

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• Cloud Provides A Third HA Option

  September 20, 2017 Alex Woodie

  In the third part of our series on IBM i high availability options, we’re looking up — to the cloud, that is.

  If you’re in the market to implement an IBM i high availability solution – and the best data we’ve seen indicates that many IBM i shops are shopping in 2017 – then you basically have three options to choose from: logical replication software solutions, IBM’s Power HA hardware solution, and a cloud-based HA solution.

  We covered the first two offerings in previous stories (you can find our story on logical replication here and our story on PowerHA here …

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• Following Equifax, Focus On Database Encryption

  September 20, 2017 Alex Woodie

  In the wake of the massive data breach at Equifax that has impacted millions of Americans, suspicions are arising that the company did not even encrypt its data. As hard as it is to believe that one of the big three credit agencies neglected to use encryption, a survey suggests that storing data in plaintext is a common business practice at the vast majority of IBM i shops.

  Despite all the news coverage of this major data breach, critical facts and details are scarce. It’s hard to know exactly what steps Equifax’s IT department took to protect its data, for …

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• Dynamic Solutions Lowers Cost For Entry-level VTL

  September 20, 2017 Dan Burger

  If you’ve been waiting for virtual tape libraries to become more affordable, your waiting days may be over. Virtual tape libraries — automated backup systems designed to replace manual tape backups — have found a niche mostly in highly regulated industries and businesses with backup complexities that make simple tape backups time consuming and risky. Dynamic Solutions International, a data storage software company with experience in IBM i data management, believes it has reduced the entry costs to a level where small to midsize shops can affordably apply backup automation with its DSI425 Series, a package designed to …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, September 20

  September 20, 2017 Dan Burger

  Last time I checked, the SAP on IBM i community was not greatly enamored with the idea of adopting HANA, the SAP in-memory database. You would get a different idea after reading the pro-HANA article in IBM’s in-house magazine. Although SAP markets HANA for business intelligence workloads, it has also repeatedly stated that its goal is to eventually replace all underlying relational databases. Some SAP on i shops are not ready for that.

  Also in Monitor this week: IBM’s CEO Ginni Rometty condemns the fear-mongering that stalks artificial intelligence; predicting the future of IT based on current spending trends; and …

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