• Mad Dog 21/21: Jimmy Choo Hill

  June 27, 2016 Hesh Wiener

  In the American West during the last quarter of the 19th century, quite a few people died with their boots on, thereby ending up in Boot Hill. These days, few people die in a saddle. Some die in gunfights. Plenty die at their desks, the way Bat Masterson did in 1921. A boneyard whose occupants expired at work wouldn’t be called Boot Hill anyway. Instead, particularly if it catered to the computer business with its many women executives, it would be named Jimmy Choo Hill. Boot Hill: Quite a few graveyards were named Boot Hill; the one in Tombstone

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• Fresche Partner Plan Aims At Expanded Reach

  June 27, 2016 Dan Burger

  Just two weeks ago, the company now known as Fresche (formerly Fresche Legacy) announced it was purchasing Quadrant Software and its key IBM i application modernization subsidiary BCD Software. The combination of BCD and Fresche’s previous acquisition of looksoftware puts a smorgasbord of modernization choices on the Fresche menu, including an instrumental application analysis tool. The latest news from Fresche is the rollout of a global partner program. The company hopes to attract a mix of IBM i independent software vendors (ISVs), value added resellers (VARs), independent consultants, and system integrators to its newly minted Power Partner Program. It

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• Advice For IBM i Shops: Balance The Old With The New

  June 27, 2016 Dan Burger

  Most C-level managers realize that progress is impossible without change. Yet making changes can be so damn difficult. Realizing that there has to be some changes made is a good start, but it’s taking that next step when companies actually achieve progress that leads to long-term success. And in the middle of it all is IT. How do companies with legacy IT systems change to keep up with progress? “One of the considerations that I feel is important is longevity,” says Steven Wolk, chief technology officer at the appliance and electronics chain store PC Richard & Son. “We’re used to

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• Power Systems GM Weights In On AS/400 Birthday

  June 27, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Any business unit within a conglomerate as vast and changing as fast as Big Blue needs to have a strong advocate as well as core financial performance that contributes to both the top and bottom line. The good news about the IBM i platform is that it has such a strong advocate in Doug Balog, general manager of the Power Systems business for the past several years. While Balog has been instrumental in pushing Linux on Power and putting together the OpenPower Foundation that is seeking to expand the Power ecosystem beyond the walls of IBM, he has not

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• Remain Software Pursues 2E Users, Expands Asian Partnerships

  June 20, 2016 Dan Burger

  Loyalty to IBM‘s midrange computer systems is a strong bond for many companies. Those with CA 2E application development environments are a great example. 2E, originally known as Synon, was one of the most successful fourth-generation language (4GL) development environments on the platform and that community continues to number in the thousands. Like other IBM midrange shops, they are concerned with application development, maintenance, and modernization. Last week, Remain Software released a CA 2E interface for its IBM i Application Lifecycle Management tool, TD/OMS. The new release supports management of business applications built with the CA 2E case tool

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• As I See It: Rediscovering The Big Fresh

  June 20, 2016 Victor Rozek

  Exercise has always been my salvation. Over the years the jobs I’ve held varied in challenge and satisfaction. But whether the work turned out to be exceptionally demanding or excruciatingly dull, exercise was my deliverance. It was a curative constant guaranteed to soften the stress and alleviate the boredom. And on those occasions when my youthful righteousness spilled over and I felt compelled to lecture my manager, exercise served as the antidote to the inappropriate expression of strong feelings. After all, there’s only so much emoting welcome in the workplace. Laughter is one thing; frustration, ah, no. Sadness or anger,

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• Analytical Expectations And Misconceptions Of IBM i

  June 20, 2016 Dan Burger

  Often we recognize we had expectations about the same time as we recognize those expectations have not been met. The IBM midrange computer, a combination of the IBM i operating system running on Power Systems hardware, exceeds the expectations of a high percentage of organizations that rely on it. Reliability, scalability, and securability are its hallmarks. However, some would describe its analytical capabilities as a weakness. Transactional-based business computers, like this one, are limited in what they can do. Are they analytically challenged? That depends on your expectations. The type of analytics most IBM i shops are interested in are

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• Windows Explorer DOS Attacks On IBM i 7.3

  June 20, 2016 Alex Woodie

  If you have noticed that Windows Explorer seems to be running especially slow when mapped to your IBM i server, you are not alone. Over the past month, there have been several reports of what appear to be limited denial of service (DOS) attacks against servers running IBM i 7.3. This issue stems from a change in protocols for mapped drives that IBM made with the new operating system, but it appears that Microsoft is on the hook for the fix. IBM issued a Technote about a month ago to describe the problem and to offer various workarounds. The problem

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• The AS/400 At 28: A HENRY, Not A DINK

  June 20, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  A lot of people get credit for the work that went into creating IBM midrange systems over the decades, and rightfully so since the creation of such machinery, including the hardware and the software, takes many hundreds or thousands of individuals with each successive generation. It is appropriate to think about them as the AS/400, the forebear of the current Power Systems IBM i system, turns 28. That is a long time in a human life, and an even longer time in computer history, where a generation has spanned from 12 to 24 months instead of decades. The funny bit

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• Inline Table Functions In DB2 For i

  June 14, 2016 Michael Sansoterra

  In DB2 for i 7.2 TR4 and IBM i 7.3, IBM has made a special user-defined table function (UDTF) enhancement that should be shouted from the rooftops. This enhancement is referred to as an inline table function. Consider the simple example of this UDTF named Get_Customer_Orders: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION Get_Customer_Orders ( @CustomerID INT, @StartDate DATE, @EndDate DATE) RETURNS TABLE ( SalesOrderId INT, CustomerId INT, OrderDate DATE, ShipDate DATE, SUBTOTAL DEC(19,4)) LANGUAGE SQL NO EXTERNAL ACTION DISALLOW PARALLEL SET OPTION COMMIT=*NONE,USRPRF=*OWNER,DATFMT=*ISO RETURN SELECT SalesOrderId,CustomerId, OrderDate,ShipDate,SubTotal FROM SalesOrderHeader WHERE CustomerId=@CustomerId AND OrderDate BETWEEN @StartDate AND @EndDate; What does DB2 do when

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