• Ditch the Check Writing, Says VAI

  December 2, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Organizations that use VAI‘s IBM i-based ERP software will be able to submit and accept payments electronically rather than write or cash checks as a result of a new partnership with Comdata. The partnership that VAI (Vormittag Associates) formed with Comdata earlier this year will see the companies integrate Comdata’s payment processing software and network with S2K Enterprise, the name of VAI’s IBM i-based ERP software. Comdata is a 45-year-old company that provides payment processing services, which got its start in the trucking industry. Today the company issues a variety of card types, including fleet fuel cards, corporate

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• Infor to Drop Support for IBM i 6.1 with ERP Apps

  December 2, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Infor will drop support for IBM i 6.1 with some of its most popular ERP products late next year, the company announced last month. It’s the same end-of-support timeframe that IBM itself has for IBM i 6.1. In November, Infor sent a notice to its customers that it will no longer support or provide enhancements for Infor LX, Infor BPCS, and Infor EAM SSA running on IBM i 6.1 after September 30, 2015. “Effective Oct 1, 2015,” the company writes, “releases, patches, and solutions delivered may be compiled for IBM i7.1/OST. These Support deliverables will install and function with IBM

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• SAP on IBM i Kernel Upgrade Taxes CPU

  December 2, 2014 Alex Woodie

  SAP on IBM i is considered one of the great, albeit largely unknown, combinations in enterprise computing. But organizations running that combo should be aware of a software upgrade from the German software giant that could cause performance issues. The issue has to do with an upgrade to the SAP kernel that was issued in July. Apparently, IBM i shops that load SAP ERP Central Component 6.0 Enhancement Package 7 (EHP7) have been experiencing longer response times from the ERP server. The information was shared last month by Christian Bartels, a product manager with IBM Germany who helps manage the

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• IBM Sets Out to Save Email with ‘Verse’

  December 2, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Email, you will remember, was the Internet’s first killer app. Before there was Twitter or texting or blogs, email transformed how we communicated. That was 30 years ago, but today email has lost its luster, thanks to spam and a plethora of other ways to send a note or share a file. Now IBM is seeking to elevate electronic mail to relevant new heights with a new hosted offering called Verse. It may sound odd, but one of the problems with email is its continued popularity and relevance in the workplace. More than 108 billion work emails are sent daily,

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• ProData Freshens Up Database Access with RDB Connect 4

  December 2, 2014 Alex Woodie

  The days when all the data you needed to access resided in DB2/400 have long since passed, and today, being able to access data on other systems is a fact of life. One vendor helping IBM i shops get the most out of their disparate data sources is ProData Computer Services, which recently updated its remote database access tool, called RDB Connect. RDB Connect is a collection of commands and functions that enable RPG, COBOL, and CL programs to have record-level access to data residing on other databases, including Microsoft SQL Server, MS Access, Oracle and MySQL, PostgreSQL,

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• A Power Tool for IBM i User Administration

  December 2, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Managing IBM i users can take a lot of work. Setting up user profiles, granting authorities, and eliminating profiles across multiple environments are critical tasks that administrators must tackle. Now PowerTech is selling a tool that automates much of the grunt work associated with user profile management on the IBM i platform. PowerTech PowerAdmin is designed to take the sting out of user profile management by implementing role-based accessed control (RBAC) for groups of users. Instead of managing all of the settings and access rights involved with each user profile individually, administrators create templates for different roles that exist within

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• A ‘FastPass’ to IBM i Password Satisfaction

  December 2, 2014 Alex Woodie

  The need to remember multiple passwords is the source of much stress for today’s modern computer user. Users must remember passwords for systems, passwords for apps, and passwords for phones. One vendor helping to eliminate the password overburden is the Danish company FastPass, which has been supporting IBM i with its password synchronization software for the past four years. FastPass is a software or a service that enables employees to use a single password to access multiple systems. FastPass is based on Microsoft‘s identity management software for Windows, including Active Directory. On top of that, FastPass has built

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• Demand Building for Node.js on IBM i

  December 2, 2014 Alex Woodie

  Few of IBM‘s October announcements generated as much excitement as the revelation that Node.js is coming to the platform. The prospect of using JavaScript to build both the client and the server side of a Web application is very intriguing. For those IBM i professionals who have been waiting for the software and the associated documentation to be available, the wait will soon be over. On October 6, IBM announced that IBM i 7.1 Technology Refresh 9 and IBM i 7.2 TR1 would both contain support for Node.js when the TRs shipped on November 11. Since then, numerous IBM

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• IBM Adds Enterprise Power8 Systems To Trade-In Deal

  December 1, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In the wake of the launch and now the delivery of the initial models in the Power8-based Power E870 and E880 machines, IBM is adding the high-end boxes to a long-running trade-in deal. The Power Systems Trade-In Program was last modified back in June, when the scale-out variants of the Power8 systems, which have one or two sockets, were added as target machines in the deal, offering customers between $500 and $2,000 if they got rid of ancient AS/400, iSeries, System i machines or any number of other Unix and proprietary machines. The deal also covers customers who want to

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• RPG Certification And College Curriculum Revision In The Works

  December 1, 2014 Dan Burger

  COMMON is beginning work on a new RPG certification for college graduates that IBM i shops can use as a yardstick for entry-level talent. The RPG Associate certification is expected to be ready by the next COMMON Annual Meeting (April 26-29 in Anaheim, California). COMMON Certification Steering Committee chairman Randy Dufault explained that the certification will be developed in conjunction with a revised RPG curriculum for colleges participating in the IBM Power Systems Academic Initiative program. The existing RPG curriculum is badly in need of replacement. The most prominent schools teaching RPG are not using the outdated curriculum, which does

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