The IT Jungle

Observations From Oracle Collaborate 2015

April 20, 2015 Richard Schoen

Each year the three largest Oracle user groups combine to host a user group event called Collaborate. With more than 1,200 educational sessions, you can see there’s a lot going on. Cloud and mobile strategy implementation were highlighted, as was the increasing impact of big data and analytics.

To a large degree, the conversations I had at this event stemmed from the software and services my company offers–HelpSystems was an exhibitor in the expo area–but this event provided a view into a large group of IBM midrange users who are similar to, but also different from, the attendees at

Good Day, Good Way To Be A Consultant

April 20, 2015 Dan Burger

Every way I turn, I find consultants. People I’ve known for years have parachuted from full-time jobs working in the traditional employee-employer circumstances to what amounts to freelance contract workers. The professional career doesn’t seem to matter. People want to get into the consulting business. Partly because businesses want to hire consultants. There’s a demand. And IBM midrange shops are no different from businesses at large. Welcome to the new job market.

You can thank technology for making all this possible.

If you’ve kept up with the latest business-tested hardware and software, or even if you haven’t, there can be

IBM i A Vital Part Of This Staffing Franchise

April 20, 2015 Alex Woodie

By 2020, it is predicted that temps, freelancers, and independent contractors will compose 40 percent of the U.S. workforce, a substantial increase over today’s figures. One company ready to capitalize on that tectonic shift in employment trends is AtWork Group, a Tennessee-based franchisor that oversees dozens of independent staffing firms around the country. With the temp business booming, AtWork is counting on its IBM i platform to help its business grow.

The franchise model has been a core part of AtWork Group’s strategy since John D. Hall Jr. founded the Knoxville, Tennessee, company back in 1992. The CEO’s goal

It’s TR Time: What’s Next For The IBM i Database?

April 20, 2015 Dan Burger

Web application development depends on two document formats for the interchange of business data: XML and JSON. The smaller (lighter weight), quicker to transmit, and more efficient is JSON. XML has been a good choice and has served its purpose well. It continues to do so. However, the popularity of JSON indicates it is the new favorite in IBM i shops, just as it is on other platforms. JSON has done well enough to get noticed on the IBM radar. It showed up in the release of IBM i 7.2 in October and it’s certain to make some noise with

Big Blue Provides Extended Support For IBM i 6.1

April 20, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Operating systems do not last forever, but they can and do go on for a long, long time in the corporate datacenter–at least the way operating systems, databases, and applications are configured in monolithic fashion these days. In other realms of corporate computing, companies are thinking about moving to lightweight software containers that wrap around microservices and heavier pieces of code, allowing for the operating system underneath the container to be updated without messing with the system and application code running in the container.

But most of us don’t live in that world and we are wrestling with monoliths and

Going Off the Grid with IBM i Mobile Apps

April 15, 2015 Alex Woodie

If you’re going mobile with your IBM i apps, you’re not alone. Every day, IBM i shops are giving their users the ability to access core applications from Android phones, iPads, and even the occasional Windows Mobile device. This can give your company a big productivity boost, especially considering that wireless Internet signals can be found everywhere–well, almost everywhere, anyway.

Despite the claims made by AT&T and Verizon, there are still regions in this big country of ours that aren’t yet bathed in cellular and Wi-Fi signals. Not only will your mobile Facebook and Twitter apps cease loading critical updates

OpenLegacy’s Modernization Approach Impresses New Partner

April 15, 2015 Alex Woodie

With its commercial open source business model, OpenLegacy is breaking the rules when it comes to the traditional ways that IBM i and mainframe software vendors sell their wares. But according to Treehouse Software‘s chief business development officer, it was the underlying technology in its application modernization suite that ultimately led it to become one of OpenLegacy’s first North American business partners.

Treehouse Software’s Wayne Lashley first encountered OpenLegacy about two years ago, when the company was still in its infancy. “I was intrigued by the idea,” he tells IT Jungle. “But I felt they were a little

Relief for Third-Party Software Upgrade Paralysis

April 15, 2015 Dan Burger

In-house software development isn’t nearly as prevalent as it once was. The cost to produce and maintain code, together with the do-more-with-less-staffing rule in many organizations, has de-emphasized home-grown software. Commercial software from the IBM ISV community, as a result, is gaining ground. That doesn’t mean, however, that commercial software isn’t customized–sometimes highly customized. And when upgrading a customized software package becomes difficult, companies sometimes put upgrades on hold–sometimes for a long time.

That’s where change management software comes into play. Without it, new development and upgrades can easily become chaotic, which means it will also become expensive. All it

On the Bleeding Edge of MIMIX Adoption with APL Logistics

April 15, 2015 Alex Woodie

Most IBM i shops, by and large, are conservative entities that adopt new releases of software only after extensive beta testing by others. But occasionally one encounters an early adopter that’s willing to be on the bleeding edge of development–in exchange for certain benefits, of course. You can count the Arizona company APL Logistics in the latter category when it comes to its MIMIX high availability software from Vision Solutions.

APL Logistics is one of two subsidiaries of Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines, the other being the ocean liner company American President Lines (APL). From its headquarters in Scottsdale, the

IBM i and the IoT

April 15, 2015 Alex Woodie

By now you’ve probably heard of the Internet of Things (IoT), or as some overzealous marketers like to call it, the Internet of Everything. By instrumenting data-emitting sensors into everyday items such as toasters, watches, and shirts, we’ll be able to glean much more insight into the real-time state of ourselves and our world. It may sound heavy on the hype and light on substance today, but there’s a good chance that the IoT could impact your standard business systems–including enterprise applications systems running on the IBM i platform.