• Beefing Up The Job Log

  July 23, 2014 Ted Holt

  Next to Barbara Morris, the job log is the IBM i professional’s best friend. However, even though job logs give useful information, they don’t always tell us everything we need to know to diagnose job failure. A recent email from perspicacious reader Daniel Long reminded me that sometimes we have to help ourselves. A job log can tell us when a job started and ended, the list of libraries at its disposal, the CL commands and programs it ran, the messages those programs sent, etc. The one thing the job log does not show us, and how I

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• DB2 for i 7.2 Features And Fun: Part 2

  July 23, 2014 Michael Sansoterra

  In the first tip of this series, I covered three new features introduced in DB2 for i 7.2: ALTER TRIGGER, TRUNCATE TABLE, and the ability to vary the fractional precision of a TIMESTAMP column. This tip continues the adventure by exploring a few more new features in IBM i 7.2 (in no particular order). KEEP IN MEMORY Clause For Tables And Index When creating a new index or table, a new KEEP IN MEMORY clause is available to tell DB2 to keep the data in main storage when possible. (A table or index cached in this manner should, of

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• IBM i Community-Minded Planning

  July 14, 2014 Dan Burger

  There will be IBM midrange shops hiring entry-level employees this year. And there will be shops wondering where they will find these folks. Finding entry-level workers with the right mix of technology skills (that includes IBM i) is not as simple as buying a gallon of milk at the Piggly Wiggly. Anan Ayyad, a student from Moraine Valley College, won the Student Innovation Award at the COMMON Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida, in May. One place you can shop for talent is the COMMON Fall Conference October 27-29 in Indianapolis, Indiana. The plan, according to Laura Ubelhor, is to bring

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• What You Don’t Know About SQL Won’t Hurt You

  July 14, 2014 Dan Burger

  Not all IBM i programmers speak SQL. It’s not even close, but it is, by most accounts a growing number. You don’t have to look under rocks to find programmers focused on leveraging SQL whether they are building applications for the Web or for green screens. This new product from Cozzi Productions, called Query File, should catch the attention of programmers regardless of their SQL skill level. It’s sort of a two-trick pony. One trick is for the people who know Query/400, but are strangers to SQL. The other trick is for those who know SQL but are pretty

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• Companies Look To Accelerate Tech Hiring A Bit

  July 14, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Every six months, the market researchers at online headhunting firm Dice take the pulse in the technology market by surveying hiring managers and recruiters who work this field. Based on the latest survey results, which were just released in June, it looks like the job market for techies is doing alright. Dice got survey responses from 737 people, including human resource managers, recruiters, and consulting and staffing companies from all around the United States between May 12 and 16. Of these, a little more than a third said they were looking for techies for their own needs and about

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• Integrated Systems Sales Still Booming In Q1

  July 14, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The IBM i-Power Systems platform may not be considered an integrated system by a formal definition by the box counters of the world, but it clear is and, perhaps more significantly, has been an integrated system since back in the days of the System/38 and AS/400. The modern market for integrated systems is booming, outpacing sales in the individual server and storage markets alike. According to the latest statistics from IDC, sales of integrated infrastructure and platforms rose by 38.5 percent in the quarter ended in March, to $1.95 billion. IDC does not provide figures for the number of

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• IBM Ponies Up $3 Billion For Advanced Chip Research

  July 14, 2014 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week committed to spending $3 billion over the next five years on fundamental research into the “post-silicon” generation of chips that will keep us close to a Moore’s Law performance track as processors shrink below the 7 nanometer threshold. Say what you will about IBM, and many in the IBM i midrange community have. But you can’t argue that Big Blue has been shortsighted when it comes to researching and developing the chips that power its large servers and storage arrays. The company is by far the biggest patent holder in the world, and its annual R&D budget

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• IBM Wheels And Deals For Flex And Power Systems

  July 14, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Big Blue started its third financial quarter last week while we were on hiatus, and given that most of us don’t expect any major server announcements until some new Intel Xeon E5 iron comes out around the fall, now would be a good time for IBM to start doing a little wheeling and dealing to get grease the skids a bit on some business. I poked around on IBM’s sites to see what is cooking above and beyond what happens in the announcement letters. If you are looking to buy one of IBM’s Flex System converged infrastructure systems, a deal

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• Mad Dog 21/21: Food Chain

  July 14, 2014 Hesh Wiener

  The strategy in big retailing, epitomized by the practices of Amazon and home delivery grocers, seems to be about as different from IBM‘s strategy as anything could be. These merchants are unafraid to accept razor-thin margins. IBM pursues high margin endeavors; it sheds operations that fail to yield large profits. Web sellers aggressively promote their prices. IBM is phenomenally secretive about pricing. So, when IBM said it was hooking up with Deliv, which provides rapid delivery services, industry observers were gobsmacked. Sure, Deliv could be the next Amazon. It could also be a rerun of Pets.com

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• Small IBM i Shops Find Simple, Inexpensive Reporting Options

  July 14, 2014 Dan Burger

  What the young programmer learns usually follows him deep into his career. An example that comes to mind is query and report. Most programmers learned how to do this with IBM‘s Query/400, which was a fine product in its day, and is still immensely popular. But familiarity breeds content for many programmers. Unfortunately that’s not true for end users. Generating reports with Query/400 has its limits and most companies exceeded those limits years ago. Even the small businesses that make up 80 percent of the IBM i community have hit the wall. They are mostly short on staff and

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