• IBM Locks Down Licensed Internal Code On Power, Mainframe Systems

  February 25, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Here we go again. Maybe. Or maybe not, if IBM‘s lawyers help it close the barn door before the horse escapes. Big Blue is tightening down the licensing of the machine code, often called licensed internal code or microcode, for selected high-end servers based on Power and System z processors. IBM has revised the terms and conditions to machine code on these machines, making it not only explicit that licenses to machine code cannot change hands, but that they may not do so without a customer signing on the dotted line a license acceptance agreement. IBM announced the new

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• Mobility Is The Motivator For Green-Screen Migrations

  February 25, 2013 Dan Burger

  IBM i shops are moving to greener pastures. It’s a migration, but it’s not the one that demonstrates the platform is dead, like some folks have been claiming for longer than a generation of young programmers has been sleeping in their own beds. Those pastures are greener because green-screen applications are steadily being left behind. And the migration within the IBM midrange user base has quickened as a direct result of mobile computing. It is no more surprising than moving mountains. “The majority of customers we deal with have mobility as a significant part of their requirements going forward,” I

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• Big Blue Jacks Software Maintenance Prices For IBM i

  February 25, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  I hate to tell you I told you so. No, really, I do. I didn’t want to be right about this. And as is the case with all prognostication, I was only partially right, so really, I didn’t want to cop to only being partly right. Back in January, in the lead story for the first issue of this year, it was reasonable to expect a maintenance price hike in 2013 on vintage System i and not-so-shiny Power Systems iron. There has indeed been a maintenance price hike, but it was on IBM i software, not IBM hardware. See,

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• Getting Short-Term Maintenance For Your Power i Machine

  February 20, 2013 Hey, Joe

  I purchased a three-year maintenance contract when I bought my Power7 machine in 2010. The contract runs out in May but I need extended maintenance through July when I’m installing a new machine and returning the old machine to the leasing company. How do I extend my hardware/software maintenance for only two months without having to buy a one-year maintenance contract? –Jean This is a fairly common situation and one that IBM provides an out for in their maintenance contracts. Here’s how you can sign a one- or multi-year maintenance contract for your existing machine and then cancel the contract

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• New CL String-Handling Functions

  February 20, 2013 Ted Holt

  Note: The document accompanying this article is available for download here. I love it when IBM enhances CL. When I hear of a new feature, my first thought is, “What can I do with this?” My mind has been spinning since Guy Vig first told me about CL’s new string-handling functions a few weeks ago. Let me tell you about these functions and some of the uses for them that have already occurred to me. First, here are a few facts you need to be aware of: IBM delivered the new functions in two PTFs: SI49061 and SI48166.

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• Stored Procedure Parameter Defaults And Named Arguments In DB2 For i

  February 20, 2013 Michael Sansoterra

  Starting with IBM i 7.1 Technology Refresh 5, DB2 for i stored procedure parameters support a default value, and the CALL statement supports named arguments. (DB2 for i Group PTF Level 18 or higher provides this new functionality). These simple and related enhancements can have surprising benefits for code comprehension and code maintenance. Let’s look at creating a procedure with one or more parameters having a default value: CREATE PROCEDURE DEV.CREATE_ORDER ( IN @CUSTOMER_ID INT, IN @ORDER_DATE DATE DEFAULT CURRENT_DATE, IN @ORDER_ID INTEGER DEFAULT (NEXT VALUE for DATALIB.ORDER_ID_SEQUENCE) , IN @ORDER_SOURCE VARCHAR(10) DEFAULT 'WEB') LANGUAGE SQL BEGIN … END

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• Pet Food Distributor Benefits from New IBM i Setup

  February 19, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Pet Food Experts, a New England distributor of pet food supplies, has realized business process improvements as the result of an implementation of Infor‘s Distribution A+ on the IBM i platform, according to a newly published case study from IBM. Rhode Island-based PFX distributes pet food and supplies to the Northeast region of the US out of its Pennsylvania warehouse. The company employs about 250, including about 25 salespeople. Before implementing Distribution A+, Pet Food Experts (PFX) ran its business on a homegrown OS/400 application, which most recently ran on an i5 Model 520. The applications had served

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• Boomi Grows Cloud Integration Under Dell

  February 19, 2013 Alex Woodie

  When Dell acquired Boomi just over two years ago, the B2B integration firm was just starting to ramp up its cloud integration service. Today, Dell says its cloud business executes more than 1 million integration processes every day, which led a company executive to declare “the end of middleware as we know it.” Boomi was an early participant in cloud-based integration business when it launched Boomi On-Demand back in 2007. The software as a service (SaaS) business model was just getting off the ground, and Boomi wanted to be there to help customers integrate their on-premise applications and data,

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• Help/Systems Opens European Headquarters

  February 19, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Fresh off the acquisitions of two UK companies, Help/Systems last week announced that it has opened a new headquarters in London to serve as the base for the company’s growing European operations. In 2012, Help/Systems acquired two IBM i software companies that were based in the UK, including CCSS, which developed systems management and monitoring tools exclusively for IBM i, and Safestone, which developed security and compliance tools for IBM i and other operating systems. Like Help/Systems, both companies had customers across Europe and around the world. With the new European headquarters in London, Help/Systems is gearing up for a

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• CNX Officially a Sencha Partner for Services

  February 19, 2013 Alex Woodie

  IBM i development tool maker CNX has used the Ext JS JavaScript library from Sencha to develop Web and mobile interfaces with its Valence toolset for six years. Last week, CNX announced that it has been formally recognized by Sencha for its expertise in using these mobile tools in services engagements. Sencha was created in 2010 when the popular JavaScript library projects Ext JS, jQTouch and Raphaël combined. Today, the privately held Northern California company is perhaps best known for Sencha Touch, a mobile application framework that speeds the creation of touch-enabled HTML5 applications for tablets and smartphones. The Ext

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