• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 19, Number 7

  February 22, 2017 Doug Bidwell

  It has been a fairly quiet week in PTF Land, and that is reasonable considering that IBM has accelerated the ramp of its Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.2 and 7.3 and is getting them out the door well ahead of the normal April-May spring cleaning for these updates.

  As we told you last week, there are several WebSphere Application Server release levels that are covered in various IBM i releases. The idea behind a Program Temporary Fix, which is what PTF stands for, is that when you take the PTF and put it on your system, it fixes the …

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• IBM Gives The Midrange A Valentine’s Day (Processor) Card

  February 20, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As expected, IBM rolled out a Valentine’s Day surprise for its IBM i and AIX customer bases with a new pair of machines aimed at giving a low powered, lower cost option for the customers running its legacy applications instead of Linux, which is the darling of the Power Systems business these days even though it does not come even close to representing the majority of the Power Systems revenue stream.

  The Power Mini or IBMini, as I have been calling the machine affectionately, turns out to be a variant of the existing single-socket Power S812 system that IBM has …

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• SQL And Database Shine As Next Tech Refresh Approaches

  February 20, 2017 Dan Burger

  Twelve inches of fresh snow has piled up on your driveway and all you have is a shovel. That’s minimal functionality and, depending on your fitness level, your snow removal performance may be less than desirable. At best, you’re on the low end of the functionality and performance continuum and you’re wishing for better.

  So it is with the DB2 for i database and the programmers who shovel data there. Any help moving data from where it is to where it’s needed will likely be appreciated. Ditto for accelerating application behavior and gaining application functionality.

  This brings us to the …

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• Guru: Parameter Passing Fundamentals Of Programs Versus Procedures

  February 20, 2017 Jon Paris

  In my earlier tip, Fundamentals: Parameter Passing, I discussed the basics of parameter passing and the importance of ensuring that parameter lengths and data types match those expected by the called routine. In this tip I want to go one step further and discuss differences between passing parameters to programs and to procedures.

  Let’s start with passing parameters between programs. In particular, I will focus on the impact of passing fewer parameters than the called program is expecting because this is one area in which programs and procedures differ, and a failure to understand that can lead to some …

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• What’s New In Access Client Solutions

  February 20, 2017 Alex Woodie

  IBM unveiled new Technology Refreshes for the IBM i 7.2 and 7.3 operating systems last week, and among the goodies intrepid IBM i professionals will get to use on March 17 are new features and functions in Access Client Solutions. The Java-based interface may not deliver everything that older products offered, but ACS does have some things you can’t find anywhere else.

  ACS, you will recall, is the new run-anywhere client that IBM unveiled back in August 2012 as the new strategic replacement for older clients. The product includes a full 5250 emulator based IBM’s Host-On Demand; 5250 printer emulation; …

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• Meet Watson, Rommety, And The New IBM

  February 20, 2017 Dan Burger

  Cognitive computing. What’s it mean? It means business. And it means change. The business world is changing. And IBM is changing. It’s the future, but it’s also the present. It’s happening now. Google and Microsoft are chasing the same vision of a data-driven world that is so complex that artificial intelligence is the only way to make sense of it.

  At IBM’s PartnerWorld conference last week, cognitive computing was all business. Of course, PartnerWorld is always about business and technology and getting onboard before all the best seats are taken. There’s always the proven versus the prediction.

  When does cognitive …

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• Why You Should Hire An IBM i Database Engineer

  February 15, 2017 Alex Woodie

  You likely know the IBM i platform as an all-in-one, self-contained bundle of computational glory and efficiency that doesn’t need an army of specialists to run like the platforms from “those other guys” do, thankyouverymuch. While that largely continues to be the case, you may consider making one exception for a certain type of technical expert: the database engineer.

  There’s a growing chorus coming out of IBM Rochester that IBM i shops should consider hiring database engineers, or DBEs. Folks like Alison Butterill, the product offering manager for the IBM i server, DB2 for i Business Architect Scott Forstie, …

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• Like Your Data Access? ProData Gives A Reason To Like It Better

  February 15, 2017 Dan Burger

  It’s crunch time and the IBM i staff is feeling the pressure. It’s time to step up your information retrieval game. In your tool box is the DBU Database Utility. Is this the right tool for your job? It is if your goal is to access data without writing programs. DBU tracks changes (adds and deletes). It also tracks all the views of company data. And it can be accomplished via green-screen, RDi, or Web interfaces.

  The Web interface for DBU Database Utility is called DBU Web. The software, designed and marketed by ProData Computer Services, was introduced in …

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• Shield Finds Success Through Simplicity With HA4i

  February 15, 2017 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that have shied away from implementing high availability software due the high level of complexity may want to take another look at the market. One HA vendor that’s finding traction with its message of simplicity is Shield Advanced Solutions, which has about 100 customers of its C-based HA4i product.

  High availability doesn’t have to be rocket science, according to Shield CEO Chris Hird, who has been navigating the HA waters since his early days selling MIMIX for IBM in the United Kingdom during the 1990s, before MIMIX was acquired by Lakeview Technology (now part of Vision …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, February 15

  February 15, 2017 Dan Burger

  At the top of the top stories list this week is an article that imagines programming as the skilled labor that can revive the job market in the United States. It doesn’t take a big stretch of the imagination to see that. Artificial intelligence and cognitive computing may obsolete some jobs, but Watson can’t out code a good coder.

  As long as we’re talking about cognitive, did you hear about the patents IBM collected this year directly related to cognitive computing? You couldn’t count them using all your fingers . . . even with 200 of your friends helping out …

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