• Tokenization Without Technical Expertise? Townsend Says It’s Here

  September 28, 2016 Alex Woodie

  Tokenization has emerged as a favorite technique for protecting sensitive data without the heavy performance, storage, and productivity hit that encryption entails. However, implementing a tokenization solution has typically required advanced development expertise, at least on the IBM i platform. Now Townsend Security has introduced a new IBM i-based tokenization solution that it says delivers the benefits of tokenization without involving programmers. Tokenization is an advanced form of encryption that’s gaining traction among banks, retailers, and payment gateways. The technique works by replacing the value of sensitive database fields, such as a credit card numbers, with randomly generated index keys,

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• Why RFID Is (Finally) Here To Stay

  September 28, 2016 Alex Woodie

  Don’t look now folks, but some of the big claims that people made about radio frequency identification (RFID) a decade ago finally are starting to come true. For companies in the manufacturing and retail industries, there’s simply no denying the major efficiency gains that RFID projects are now delivering. Here are some of the reasons why RFID is finally here, and what took so long. Of course, it wasn’t supposed to take this long. When Wal-Mart issued a mandate for all of its suppliers to adopt case-level RFID tagging back 2003, the transition was expected to take about two years.

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• PowerHA Implementations No Picnic; Help On The Way

  September 28, 2016 Dan Burger

  Easy as pie does not describe the implementation process for PowerHA. It can be a mind-bender, even in shops where the staffing is adequate and the skills are current. So how about something a little easier to implement and why not make it applicable to all three operating systems that run on Power? It’s coming soon, even though the official announcement has yet to be made. Easier implementation should be a big boost to PowerHA. At least that’s what Satya Sharma, CTO and IBM Power Systems Fellow, told me when we met last week at the Edge 2016 conference in

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• How To Replace MOVE And MOVEL With Subprocedures

  September 27, 2016 Ted Holt

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. Google “what shall we do about” and you’ll find a lot of issues that people are concerned about. Now that RPG has gone fully free-form, the question of concern for RPG programmers is “what shall we do about MOVE and MOVEL?” Faithful reader Mark sent me a solution he used in his shop and gave me permission to pass it along in case it may be of help to you. I can think of two ways to replace MOVE and MOVEL with free-form code. The first is to

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• A Brief Introduction To The SQL Procedures Language

  September 27, 2016 Ted Holt

  The SQL Procedures Language, or SQL PL, is a proprietary procedural language that IBM designed to work with the DB2 family of database management systems. I believe that it’s a good idea for anyone who works with DB2 to learn SQL PL. If you know RPG, CL, or COBOL, you’ll find it easy to learn. SQL PL is available for all the DB2s. Knowledge of SQL PL that you acquire by working with DB2 for i applies in large part to the mainframe and LUW (Linux-Unix-Windows) versions. You can use SQL PL to create stored procedures, functions, and triggers. You

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• RPG Talks To Watson

  September 27, 2016 Paul Tuohy

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. Yes, RPG can talk to Watson. No special software required, nothing to install, nothing to configure. You just need to be on V7R1, have the ability to use embedded SQL and write just a few lines of code–none of which are complicated. To see how it works, all you have to do is copy/paste the display file and RPG code in this article, compile and call. On the off chance that you don’t know what Watson is, Watson is the IBM computer that, in 2011, competed

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• IBM Preaches Cognitive, Cloud, And IT Consumption

  September 26, 2016 Dan Burger

  They say it’s not just about the technology. It’s really about the business. But that brings to mind an old adage from the car industry: You sell the sizzle not the steak. Right now the sizzle is cognitive computing. It has edged out big data and analytics in the one-upsmanship match of IT leadership and the next big thing. At the Edge conference last week, when IBM executives talked strategy and road maps, cognitive computing was on the tip of tongues. Cognitive is a differentiator, an upper hand for IBM. Big Blue has not let the world forget about Watson,

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• Mad Dog 21/21: From Hegel To Google

  September 26, 2016 Hesh Wiener

  The renowned philosopher Georg Hegel, whose life coincided with the Industrial Revolution, analyzed social change and the resultant conflict of old and new. His ideas galvanized Karl Marx, 50 years his junior. Two centuries after his birth, Hegel’s wisdom guided Silicon Valley’s sensational inventors. At its best, our economy is nourished by a hearty Hegelian stew of technologies seasoned with a dash of Ninotchka. At its worst, we try to feed on an Apple duly but dully managed by former ibmocrat Tim Cook as we listen to a hoarse Yahoo. Georg Hegel: German philosopher whose

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• Living With VIOS and Other Tips From A Power Champion

  September 26, 2016 Alex Woodie

  Nobody likes VIOS, not even AIX administrators, admits Anthony English, an AIX expert who was named an IBM Champion for Power earlier this year. But with the proper mindset, a good coach, and a few key pieces of knowledge, even career IBM i professionals can learn to get along with the Virtual I/O Server. There isn’t much clarity surrounding VIOS in the IBM i community. Many IBM i professionals who have spent their entire careers managing disks and storage the old-fashioned way in the IBM i operating system get flummoxed when presented an AIX-based VIOS screen. VIOS is weird and

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• With Avnet Deal, Tech Data Spans From Glass House To Your House

  September 26, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  And then there were three. For the past several years, the two dominant master resellers of Power-based systems–that would be Avnet and Arrow Electronics–who also sell a whole lot of other kinds of IT gear into datacenters, got a little competition from Tech Data and Ingram Micro joined the fray and started peddling Power gear and related storage. Rather than compete with Avnet, Tech Data decided to shell out a whole lot of money to buy its Technology Solutions division, thus vaulting itself into a better competitive position in the IT distribution business relative to Arrow and making it

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