• IBM i 7.1 TR4 Database Enhancements: What’s Going On?

  May 21, 2012 Dan Burger

  Even if you are not onboard with database modernization, IBM is moving forward and expecting that sooner or later the majority of the IBM i customer base will fathom the SQL/DDL emphasis that goes into DB2 for i. With the Technology Refresh 4 update that has just come warm out of the oven, the database enhancements that baked into TR4 include a little bit for everyone. That is, everyone who no longer hangs on to the traditional DB2/400 way of doing things. Traditions are nice for holidays and family reunions. And they can sometimes serve you well in the IT

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• IBM i And AIX Shops Pay A Hefty Premium Over PowerLinux Buyers

  May 21, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As anyone who has a past experience with multiple long-term relationships or more than one child will tell you, comparisons are odious. But when we are shopping for infrastructure or searching for a mate or figuring out which kid is going to get what when you finally shuffle off the mortal coil, you can’t help but make comparisons. And even after you’ve made your choice, you keep looking to make sure you are getting a good deal. If you are a Power Systems shop running either IBM i or AIX, you are just not getting as good of a deal

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• Preventing Your System from Restarting After a Full System Backup

  May 16, 2012 Hey, Joe

  Good article on the secrets of the IBM i IPL parameters. Is there a way to stop the system from restarting after my full system backups complete (GO SAVE, option 21)? There are times that it would be great for the system to stay in restricted state after a backup, but the startup CL program always runs. How do I stop it from running? –Doug Here’s the drill for changing your System i and Power i partitions so that they don’t kick off their system startup programs after a GO SAVE, option 21, full system backup. First, realize that

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• Generic Processing, Continued

  May 16, 2012 Ted Holt

  Imagine needing to delete a large number–50, 100, 1,000–device descriptions, all of which begin with the same group of characters, from your system. Now imagine the Delete Device Description (DLTDEVD) command not accepting a generic device name. That got ugly quickly, didn’t it? And yet that sort of thing is what programmers often force end users to do. Maybe we need to add generic processing to our applications. I have written about generic names before. (See Related Stories at the end of this article.) But I have not written about using generic values in the context of application development. Suppose

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• Boolean Variables: Underused and Unappreciated

  May 16, 2012 Ted Holt

  Boolean variables can have only two values: true and false. In CL, they are known as logical variables. In RPG, they’re called indicator variables. They’re not essential; I got by without them for years. But they are useful. Let’s take a closer look at Boolean variables. Let me share a story with you. Some years ago, a certain factory started faxing requirements reports to their suppliers. The suppliers liked the reports, but some of them asked if they might receive the requirements electronically in a spreadsheet format. The IT department added a one-digit code to the database. 1=send by

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• Symtrax Launches New Template Design Tool

  May 15, 2012 Alex Woodie

  Symtrax recently launched Compleo Designer, a new tool designed to simplify the process of creating reusable document templates from the structured output of ERP systems, including JD Edwards and SAP. Compleo Designer was created to help users adapt to the continually changing business requirements surrounding their documents. The software allows users to quickly generate new electronic document templates from the output of ERP systems, and to modify them to meet their organization’s needs. These templates then are used to generate the finished documents, until the output from the underlying ERP system changes again, and the process repeats. The document

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• VAI Signs 3 Northeast Distributors to ERP Deals

  May 15, 2012 Alex Woodie

  VAI recently announced the signing of three distributors in the Northeast to license contracts for its ERP software, called S2K Enterprise. The companies–J. Polep Distribution Services, Hillcrest Foods, and Reiss Wholesale Hardware–are midsize businesses right in VAI’s industry sweet spot. J. Polep Distribution Services is a Massachusetts-based distributor to convenience stores in New England. The 110-year-old company serves more than 4,000 chain and independent convenience stores from four distribution centers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The company selected VAI’s IBM i-based package for food distributors and manufacturers, called S2K for Food Enterprise Management, to drive its growth strategy, according

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• 10ZiG Shows Off its ‘Zignature Pad’ at COMMON

  May 15, 2012 Alex Woodie

  10ZiG Technologies had its latest product, the Zignature Pad, on display in the Expo hall of last week’s COMMON conference in Anaheim, California. The 12-inch tall pad is a dedicated signature collection device, and has features you won’t find with signature capture apps for an iPad. There are several aspects of the Zignature Pad that make it a superior signature capture solution in highly regulated industries, such as healthcare, finance, and real estate, 10ZiG Tech president Martin Pladgeman told IT Jungle at last week’s COMMON. For starters, the large color screen (12-inch by 7.5-inch) enables an entire document to be

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• Zend Taps Percona to Provide Support and Maintenance for DBi

  May 15, 2012 Alex Woodie

  Zend Technologies last week announced that it has selected Percona to maintain and support DBi, the new version of the MySQL database developed for the IBM i platform. Percona is a well-respected provider of MySQL support services that competes directly with MySQL. Zend developed DBi to be a drop-in replacement for MySQL on the IBM i platform. The creation of a MySQL variant was necessary because Oracle dropped IBM i support on MySQL in late 2010. DBi was first revealed by Zend in September 2011 and shipped last month. It was initially expected that Zend developers would continue to

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• DRV Tech Delivers Report Writer with FlexTools V5

  May 15, 2012 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that use DRV Technologies‘ FlexTools software to manage their spool files now have the option to use the new DataFlex component to generate reports from their data. The new report writer, which was unveiled as part of FlexTools version 5 at last week’s COMMON conference in Anaheim, California, creates reports from DB2/400 files and outputs them in several formats. DataFlex offers IBM i shops another way to query their DB2/400 data and generate basic reports from that data. The product enables users to join multiple database files, select data by record range, and specify field selection,

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