• IBM Is Working On New Software Licensing Schemes

  April 22, 2013 Alex Woodie

  The old tier-based licensing scheme worked great for many years, but is rapidly outgrowing its usefulness, thanks to widespread virtualization, cheap CPWs, and cloud workloads. Some software vendors who play by the P-group rules have taken it on the chin, while others have jury-rigged complex rules to make ends meet, and managed service providers (MSPs) just roll their eyes. IBM apparently has taken notice of the problem, and the Power Systems team is working on some kind of fix, IT Jungle has learned. Ordinarily it wouldn’t be news that IBM is working on a new licensing scheme. After all, Big

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• Remain Software Improves ALM Workflow, Readies Multi-Platform Capabilities

  April 17, 2013 Dan Burger

  Change management in IBM midrange shops is much more precise than its equivalent on other platforms. It has also been very platform specific. That was all well and good when the platform was dominant in its world. But it’s rarely a standalone platform these days. Development in multiple languages has made single-platform change management too limited. And that’s what led Remain Software to introduce a workflow management product it calls Gravity. Gravity specializes in process automation, improved collaboration, and smooth communication among development teams. That’s phase one, which is available now. The actual multi-platform capabilities will be introduced later this

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• How Do I Load This Digital Certificate On My IBM i Machine?

  April 17, 2013 Hey, Joe

  A banking client is requiring us to load a Verisign Class Secure Server CA – G3 certificate authority (CA) certificate on my IBM i box. But when I try to load it into Digital Certificate Manager (DCM), DCM gives me this error: “An error occurred during certificate validation. The issuer of the certificate may not be in the certificate store or the issuer may not be enabled.” What’s going on? –WC This is a fairly common problem and it has an easy solution. The certificate won’t load because in addition to loading the bank’s Verisign Class Secure Server CA –

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• Extract Zoned And Packed-Decimal Values From Character Fields, Take Two

  April 17, 2013 Ted Holt

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. Sometimes a reader of this august publication asks me about a problem that I don’t face, and I reply with an academic answer. But when I face the same problem, my interest ceases to be academic, and I look for a more practical solution. Such is the case with the use of SQL to extract packed- and zoned-decimal fields from a string of character data. In the January 19, 2005, issue of Four Hundred Guru, I answered a question from Mary, who wanted to create a logical

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• Encoding XML (Or HTML) From Within RPG

  April 17, 2013 Bob Cozzi

  RPG developers who jump to the web and CGI programming soon learn that a stream-based syntax requires the use of certain control characters. Unlike native database, which uses structures and hidden attributes to control field size and starting and ending locations, HTML and XML rely on <i>tags</i>, agreed-upon syntax for start and end delimiters. You may be familiar with Comma Separated Values and the use of both the comma and the double-quote as the delimiters for that type of file. XML and HTML use much more verbose values as their tags or delimiters. Tags do double duty; they separate data

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• Oracle Unveils In-Memory Applications for JD Edwards

  April 16, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Oracle last week announced a slew of new in-memory applications that will be delivered across its line of ERP and CRM suits. The new in-memory offerings include two JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications that will run in-memory on its new line of all-in-one Engineered Systems. Oracle has come under pressure from rival SAP to bolster its in-memory offerings, particularly after SAP announced in January that its HANA in-memory database can now be used to run transaction and analytic workloads simultaneously on the same server. Oracle isn’t trying to combine transactional and analytic workloads at this time. Instead, it’s unveiling new in-memory

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• Polish Processing Bureau Taps Raz-Lee for IBM i Security Tools

  April 16, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Comarch, the Polish IT services firm, has acquired a license to Raz-Lee Security‘s IBM i security suite to help protect the i5/OS environment it manages for customers. Comarch is a Krakow-based company that provides a range of IT services across multiple industries, including ERP management, security, business intelligence, and CRM. The company, which has 3,500 employees, services customers across central Europe, from Russia in the east to Belgium in the west, and it also has offices in the US and the Middle East. Among the company’s offerings is an insurance processing service that runs on hosted i5/OS machines.

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• User m-Power-ment, Delivered with Dashboards

  April 16, 2013 Alex Woodie

  In the epic struggle between users and developers, there is a stream of thought among developers that anything they can do to get users out of their hair must be a good and decent thing. To that end, mrc last week unveiled a new feature called user-defined dashboards to its flagship Java Web app generator, m-Power. Saving developers time and effort has been a goal of michaels, ross, and cole ever since the days when its 4GL environment, Productivity Series, was generating gobs of RPG for clients all over the world. But instead of outputting green-screen 5250 programs, today’s mrc

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• Halcyon Updates Swath of IBM i Sys Management Tools

  April 16, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Halcyon Software got a few things off its plate at the COMMON conference in Austin, Texas, last week. To be exact, the UK-based software firm delivered three new versions of IBM i systems management tools, including Job Scheduler, Authority Swapper, and Document Management System. The Halcyon folks were good sports at the COMMON show last week, despite losing vice president of sales John Dominic to Maxava just prior to the show, and despite the fact that their entire booth was somehow lost in the mail. While attendees were rightfully impressed with Halcyon’s cardboard-based presentation device, IT Jungle is more interested

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• IBM to Resell ARCAD’s IBM i Tools as Rational Power Pack

  April 16, 2013 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week announced that it is now distributing several of ARCAD Software‘s IBM i change management tools along with its Rational Team Concert product. IBM’s announcement of the ARCAD–Rational Power Pack is a tremendous win for ARCAD, and a validation of a decision it made years ago to pursue a Rational-centric strategy. ARCAD made a decision two years ago to stop competing against IBM and its Rational Team Concert (RTC) product, which IBM launched in late 2008 to provide source control, change management, and build management capabilities. While other change management software vendors continued to compete with IBM

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