The IT Jungle

Power Systems Fuel IBM Channel Growth, Says Avnet Exec

February 29, 2016 Dan Burger

In the past year, the IBM channel has experienced 25 percent growth on Power, according to an executive at Avnet, one of IBM’s dominant sales channel partners. Workloads attributed to business analytics, high performance business computing, and management of big data–all the areas that IBM predicted would make a difference–are driving the gains. Managed service providers are getting some of the credit, but on-premise upgrades for customers are in on this, too.

Richard Martinez’s business card identifies him as supplier business executive for IBM Power at Avnet, which along with Arrow Electronics, is one of IBM’s biggest business

WebSmart For Node.js Beta Project Under Way

February 29, 2016 Dan Burger

When IBM i got support for Node.js eight months ago, it lit a fire. BCD Software threw a log on that fire last week by announcing its Web development environment WebSmart supports Node.js as well. It’s a beta project now, but if things go according to plan WebSmart for Node.js will be generally available in three months. Will the open source Node.js be as popular in the IBM midrange community as open source PHP? We will have to see how that plays out.

Node.js applications can be rendered on desktops, tablets and smartphones when BCD releases WebSmart Node.js.

IBM’s support

HelpSystems Spies Overseas Expansion With Tango/04 Buy

February 29, 2016 Alex Woodie

HelpSystems CEO Chris Heim told IT Jungle that his company’s acquisition of rival IBM i software maker Tango/04 Computing Group last week marks the beginning of an aggressive push into the overseas market. The deal for Tango/04 will jumpstart HelpSystems’ presence in Southern Europe and Latin America, but there’s a lot more room for expansion, he says.

While North America is far and away the biggest market for IBM i goods and services, the platform has always enjoyed strong overseas sales and has an international presence that is arguably bigger than it is in the United States. IBM makes about

Payday For The People Who Make The IBM i Go

February 29, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan

In our ongoing series on the people who run and program the IBM i platform and the industries where they work, we are now going to finally get to the meat of the issue: Payday for programming. Moola for managing. Greenbacks for greenscreens and for converting greenscreens to modern web and mobile interfaces. The reason why you get out of bed in the morning and go to your respective and respected work.

The data is pretty thin about salaries out there in IBM Midrange Land, but luckily for us Bob Langieri, president of Excel Technical Services and a long-time recruiter

XML-INTO And Optional Elements

February 23, 2016 Hey, Jon

Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here.

I am working on an RPG program that does some very basic pre-processing of an XML document before passing it along to another program for final processing. Even though my program works, it fills up the job log with error messages. Can you help me get rid of them?

The XML is structured like this.

 <Message>
  <Payload>
   <Event>. . . </Event>
  </Payload>
 </Message>

The <Payload> element can contain a child element of <Event>, <Report>, or <Parameter>. Only one of these elements is ever contained in the message at

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

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

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

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

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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