• Using Lateral Correlation To Define Expressions In DB2 For i

  August 2, 2016 Michael Sansoterra

  The SQL implementation in DB2 for i is second to none. However, one irritating thing common to various SQL dialects is the need to repeat expressions in query. As SQL matured over the years, techniques such as nested table and common table expressions became available to, among other things, reduce repetitive expressions. This tip illustrates the use of the LATERAL correlation as another way to avoid repetition. The Problem Say you’re writing a report for a grocery wholesaler, where markup on food items is small and discounts are even smaller. Looking for orders that were not priced correctly, you’re tasked

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• Give Me Fewer (Not More!) Parameters, Please!

  August 2, 2016 Ted Holt

  Today’s musings fall into the “why would anybody want to do that?” category. “Why would anybody want to be president?” asks Barack Obama. “Why would anybody steal a groundhog?” asks Rita in Groundhog Day. My question is, “Why would anybody pass 16,382 parameters to a subprocedure?” There is a better way. I stand second to none in my admiration for parameters. The first system I learned to program, the IBM System/3 Model 12, allowed no parameter passing to RPG programs or OCL procedures. Cloning diminished–and life improved–when I started working on a S/34, which allowed OCL procedures to receive

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• CHAIN vs SELECT INTO

  August 2, 2016 Chuck Luttor

  The average RPG developer can quickly become proficient in replacing RPG database operation codes with their SQL equivalents when undertaking new programming. In each installment of this series, I will visit an op code or set of op codes in order to prove my contention. First up today is CHAIN. I remember the CHAIN op code from System/3 Model 6 and Model 10 disk days. (Yes, I have been around for a long, long time.) It has been used extensively by every RPG programmer since then. It is the basic op code for random access. In the “old days” it

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• Systems Monitoring Made Easier, Better, GUI-er

  July 25, 2016 Dan Burger

  With the introduction of its newest systems management software, HelpSystems is showing off what it can do by merging its traditional Robot line with an acquired product from the CCSS family of tools. Raise the curtain, please, on Robot Monitor 14, a feature enhanced version of what was formerly known as CCSS QSystem Monitor now integrated with the Robot IT operations management and infrastructure monitoring software stack. The new Robot Monitor specializes in keeping watch over system performance from a single, central dashboard. It provides real-time data on: job status and performance system configuration and performance IOP utilization resources communication

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• Mad Dog 21/21: Brexit, Pursued By A Bear Market

  July 25, 2016 Hesh Wiener

  In The Winter’s Tale, Antigonus is chased offstage to his death. Shakespeare’s stage direction is, “Exit, pursued by a bear.” This instruction is part of a quirky drama that begins in tragedy but ends with joy and redemption, a story chock full of surprises. Its boggled principals apparently feel the way Britons, Europeans, and indeed the rest of us do in the wake of Brexit, the indication that Britain’s voters want to leave the European Union. Brexit rattled the world’s financial markets. Most investors had not expected the turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving. A fortnight after Brexit, the

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• At The End Of The Power8 Long Tail

  July 25, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Largely for economic reasons relating to IBM‘s high costs in chip manufacturing and relatively low chip volumes, the Power Systems platform left the familiar cadence of Moore’s Law progress quite a while ago. IBM stretched it out to three years or more between processor cycles, and here we are in the middle of 2016 and we are still probably at least a year away from the Power9 launch. At the tail end of any product cycle revenues are bound to dip, and this is precisely what is happening to segments of the Power Systems line. The bad news for

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• Townsend Ponders Future Of DB2 Modernization Tech

  July 25, 2016 Alex Woodie

  What will Townsend Security do with the potentially groundbreaking technology it created to solve a thorny encryption issue in DB2 for i? While the Olympia, Washington-based company is not interested in getting into the database modernization business, it is open to the possibility of licensing its innovative technology–which essentially uses Open Access for RPG to replace record-level I/O calls in legacy RPG apps with the SQL Query Engine–to people who are. Townsend finds itself in this peculiar situation through no fault of its own. The company ran into a tough technical problem that stymied some of its largest customers in

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• Surviving A Change Management Migration

  July 25, 2016 Dan Burger

  Software migrations are the root canals of enterprise IT. Rarely do you find anyone looking forward to them. That’s not to say they are not being considered. High maintenance fees and minimal enhancements have encouraged software replacement strategies to become more widespread than they were just a few years ago. In the IBM midrange community, where application and database modernization is at the top of the priority list, migration obstacles–risk and complexity–are being overcome. A recent example that has come to the attention of IT Jungle is the replacement of change management software at Vermont Information Processing(VIP), an IBM

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• IBM Delivers WebSphere 9 with Web Enablement for IBM i 1.1

  July 20, 2016 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that are eager to get their hands on the latest release of the WebSphere Application Server can now do so. On June 24 IBM started shipping IBM Web Enablement for i version 1.1, which includes WAS version 9. Interesting bits shipped with the new release of WebSphere include support for Java 7, integration with Watson cloud services, new API features, and new containerization options, among other features. WebSphere version 9 brings the first full refresh since IBM delivered WebSphere 8 back in 2011. As was the case with the previous release, WAS 9 includes the full

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• DRV Check Printing Software A Laser Sharp Cost Cutter

  July 20, 2016 Dan Burger

  Life is full of surprises. For example, why would a company rely on pre-printed, continuous-form checks printed on impact printers? It would seem that simply becoming aware of impact printer prices would prod a decision maker into searching for an alternative. Every company is supposed to have a cost-cutting watch dog. And that dog is also supposed to be watching for ramifications to low cost–things like weakened security and performance degradation. If you’re that dog, here’s your alternative to expensive and proprietary MICR-enhanced impact printers. It’s called SecureChex and it comes from DRV Technologies, an IBM i software vendor

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