• SBMJOB, CALL, And Decimal Parameters

  February 23, 2016 Ted Holt

  In spite of my great admiration for the IBM i operating system, I have to admit it has its idiosyncrasies. One of them, which has been there since Day 1, is the way the Submit Job (SBMJOB) command reformats decimal parameters of the CALL command. Fortunately, a relatively recent addition to CL provides an easy way to deal with this quirk. Assume a CL program calls an RPG program, passing along two decimal variables and a character variable. dcl &Option *char 1 dcl &Account *dec 5 dcl &ThruDate *dec 7 call AR100R (&Account &ThruDate &Option) One day you are told

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• PHP Crash Course For RPG Developers

  February 23, 2016 Chris Ringer

  Suppose your boss tasks you with grabbing and processing some XML from an HTTP request to create a new customer order. If you have a “deer in the headlights” expression on your face, don’t fear, you don’t have to punt this request over the cubicle wall to the web developers. Without weeks or months of training, you can build a PHP script to retrieve the XML data that RPG can parse. What is PHP? PHP is a full-featured scripting language that runs on a web server. Just type your PHP code in a text editor (even Notepad), save it on

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• The Rewards of IBM i Community Engagement

  February 22, 2016 Dan Burger

  In a world where outlandish claims, one-upsmanship, and hyperbole are as certain as the sun rising each day, it’s no exaggeration to describe the late Al Barsa as the greatest IBM midrange advocate of all time. Like the system itself, Barsa was brilliant and meticulously thorough. He knew the system as well as anyone. The IBM midrange community needs more people like Al Barsa. Not that it has none. It simply needs more. Barsa was a real piece of work, and that should be interpreted in the most complementary way. He could be difficult. He could be eccentric. But he

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• Mad Dog 21/21: Legacy System

  February 22, 2016 Hesh Wiener

  In mid-2017, IBM chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty will turn 60. If she honors IBM’s traditions, December 31 of next year will be her last day as CEO. With time running low, Rometty is driving Big Blue to undergo dramatic change. She is making strategic acquisitions, executing significant disposals and forcing changes in the ranks of top executives. There’s no more Ms. Nice Gal, if there ever was one. For Rometty and for IBM, it is do or die . . . or, as some fear, perhaps both. The most noteworthy moment in Rometty’s tenure came in October

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• iNext Revealed As IBM i 7.3

  February 22, 2016 Dan Burger

  As psychological thrillers go, the IBM i strategy and roadmap falls short of entertaining movies like “Gravity” and “Chinatown” or good reads like “The Andromeda Strain” and “In Cold Blood.” But there’s always an element of suspense when a new release of the IBM i operating system is lurking in the shadows. Chief Architect Steve Will provided a heads up last week that what’s coming is more than the typical cloak and dagger Technology Refresh. To the casual observer, a new release of IBM‘s best camouflaged operating system isn’t due to arrive for another two years. It was 2014

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• SEQUEL Data Warehouse Picks Up Where RODIN Left Off

  February 22, 2016 Alex Woodie

  Not every IBM i shop needs a big data warehouse to store and analyze information about their operations. But for those organizations whose data needs go beyond basic reporting capabilities, it is good to know there are tools like HelpSystems‘ SEQUEL Data Warehouse, which was formally called RODIN and which the company just released at version 8.0 with substantial new functionality. It has been a year-and-a-half since HelpSystems acquired Coglin Mill, the Rochester, Minnesota, based company that developed RODIN. Once dubbed “the IBM i platforms best-kept secret,” RODIN provided enterprise-grade data preparation capabilities and extract, transform, and load (ETL)

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• The Job Market For The People Who Make The IBM i Go

  February 22, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Like you, we are trying to understand the current state of the IBM i community. Thus far in 2016, we have taken several looks at the dicing and slicing of the latest IBM i Marketplace Survey compiled by HelpSystems as well as providing our own insight into what industries are represented by the IBM i base and how that compares to historical data. We also did our best to try to case the distribution of system admins and programmers in the IBM i base. This week, we want to take a look at the job market for the people in

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• IBM i Shines In Academic Research Data Center

  February 15, 2016 Dan Burger

  The Power Systems Academic Initiative is more than classes that teach RPG, PHP, and enterprise computing. It’s much more. It’s about research and the role of information technology. And more and more it’s about data and analyses. Where this is headed has caused the Academic Initiative data center to relocate to accommodate growth and the requests from colleges and universities that keeps IBM i in the midst of innovation. During the past month and a half, the AI data center has found a new home in Tucson, Arizona, in a facility IBM uses primarily for its storage product testing and

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• As I See It: Beware Of Beware

  February 15, 2016 Victor Rozek

  At some point in our lives, a transformative event or some perceived injustice propels many of us to become active in social or political movements. At least for a period of time. Regardless of left/right orientation, where politics and social justice matters are concerned, emotions tend to run high and rhetoric flows. And since there are few, if any, centrist movements committed to nothing nobler than nurturing the status quo, activists typically congregate on the margins, doing and saying things they think will best publicize their cause. The more outrageous and controversial their actions, the more media coverage they are

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• Speed Versus Need In IBM i Mobile Initiatives

  February 15, 2016 Dan Burger

  As mobile access to corporate communications and data becomes more widespread in IBM midrange shops, those who are just arriving at the party can learn a great deal from those who came before them. We learn from our mistakes, but actually it’s a lot less bloody when we learn from others mistakes. And when mistakes do get made; there will be pressure to step on the accelerator before turning on the lights. Damn the darkness. Let’s go mobile! Security and employee education are two major issues that are being de-emphasized or ignored until something bad happens. If it wasn’t for

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