• Businesses Optimistic About Second Quarter IT Hiring

  April 16, 2012 Jenny Thomas

  As the United States continues to push through these tough economic times, one of the often cited indicators of recovery, or lack thereof, is how many people are searching for jobs. Whether or not you believe the latest unemployment statistics, which are hanging a shade over 8 percent, there is a glimmer of good news for those looking for work in IT, at least according to the latest Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report. While the numbers do indicate a slower pace than three months ago, the fact is RHT expects continued IT hiring in the

  … Read more

• Some Carrots To Get i5/OS V5 Shops To Move Forward

  April 16, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IT vendors generally use a carrot-and-stick approach to coax customers to move ahead with hardware and software technologies. They don’t do this because they like giving negative reinforcement–not any more than our parents did or we do as parents–but because this is how human beings are resistant to change and need some encouragement to act. IBM has been carrotting and sticking the i5/OS V5R4 customer base for years now, and it is dangling some more carrots. The latest stick, of course, was two months ago when IBM announced that support on i5/OS V5R4, sometimes called IBM i 5.4 by Big

  … Read more

• IBM Rolls Out iTunes-Like Store For Enterprise Apps

  April 16, 2012 Alex Woodie

  Part of the IBM PureSystems launch last week was something called PureSystems Centre, an iTunes-like portal where people can browse various enterprise applications that have been vetted to run on the PureFlex and PureApplications systems. You can even click on a “Get it now” button for a quick download and install, just like getting Angry Birds on your iPhone or iPad. While the mobile app store concept doesn’t quite translate to the enterprise space, PureSystems Centre forecasts a more intuitive enterprise app shopping experience, and serves as a vehicle for giving ISVs a seat on IBM’s SmartCloud. Angry Birds Space

  … Read more

• A Closer Look At The Flex System Iron

  April 16, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In the lead story in this issue of The Four Hundred, I walked you through the basic structure and the high-level sales pitch for the new PureSystem family of converged platforms announced by IBM last Wednesday. That gives you the view from 30,000 feet with a couple of buzz dives down but still well above the tree tops. Now it is time to take a good hard look at the new iron. We’ll start with the Flex System chassis at the heart of the PureFlex and PureApplication machines and the three server nodes that slide into its bays. But

  … Read more

• IBM Launches Hybrid, Flexible Systems Into The Data Center

  April 16, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It takes a little time and a lot of money to roll out a new server architecture, and even a company as large as IBM can’t do it very often. The System/360 in 1964. The System/38 in 1979 and its follow-on, the AS/400, in 1988. The RS/6000 in 1990. The BladeCenter in 2002, and the Sequent-inspired clustered server nodes in the xSeries and pSeries in the mid-2000s. iDataplex in 2008. And now the PureSystem converged infrastructure launched last week, in 2012. IBM started designing the BladeCenter blade server back in 1999, when some enterprise-class companies were pretty fed up with

  … Read more

• What Happened to My QFileSvr.400 Connection?

  April 11, 2012 Hey, Joe

  I set up a QFileSvr.400 connection for accessing AS/400 Integrated File Systems (AS/400 IFS) objects on another IBM i machine. I use it several times a month to transfer files. All of a sudden, the connection stopped working and I have no clue why. Do you have any idea what could happened and how I can fix it? –Bob As I’ve written before, I love using QFileSvr.400 for accessing, modifying, and copying or moving files between two IBM i systems (Power i, System i, and iSeries). A QFileSvr.400 link is incredibly easy to set up. All you have to do

  … Read more

• Interpreted CL Members, Take 2

  April 11, 2012 Ted Holt

  Once again, the alert and astute readers of this august publication have proven true the old adage that multiple methods exist for removing the outer covering of a feline animal. Several of you wrote in response to my article, Interpreted CL Members, to share other methods of running CL commands in interpreted mode. Here are some of the comments I received. I use REXX to handle scripting for CL commands. While I’m not an expert, I’ve found it useful for tasks that you do at a command line to set up something, do over and over, and forget the

  … Read more

• Index Advisor, Part 2

  April 11, 2012 Paul Tuohy

  In part 1 of this series, I introduced you to the basic functionality of Index Advisor. In this article, we will take a look at more of the options and functionality available with Index Advisor for Systems Director Navigator for i. More Options Apart from the obvious information (table and schema names), the Index Advisor window also gives us some pertinent information, such as: The advised key The first and last time the index was advised The number of times the index was advised The longest and average execution times for the queries that generated the index advise The

  … Read more

• Oracle Unveils New BI Apps for Exalytics Machine

  April 10, 2012 Alex Woodie

  Oracle last week unveiled two new business intelligence applications, called Manufacturing Analytics and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Analytics. The new offerings are certified to run on Exalytics, Oracle’s new in-memory analytics machine, and are preconfigured to work with Oracle’s E-Business Suite, although it can also work with data from JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and World and other ERP systems. The new Manufacturing Analytics application is designed to give executives deeper insight into important elements of their companies’ operations, including manufacturing schedules, cost, quality, and service levels. The software helps customers correlate work order information with production plans, improve insight into raw

  … Read more

• TIBCO to Buy LogLogic

  April 10, 2012 Alex Woodie

  Data broker software developer TIBCO Software will buy log management and security software provider LogLogic, the company announced last week. LogLogic’s products are designed to store and make sense out of large amounts of log data for the purposes of security and regulatory compliance. The company sells pre-configured, Lintel-based appliances fitted with Fibre Channel network cards that can slurp in hundreds of thousands of records per second. The company also sells virtual appliances that customers can install on their own hardware. Some of the company’s offerings are geared to long-term archives, while others are designed for real-time detection of

  … Read more

Previous Articles Next Articles