• Admin Alert: More Information on Semi-Restricted State, Vendor Profiles, and Storage Pools

  December 7, 2011 Joe Hertvik

  As we approach year end, I usually clear out my Admin Alert mailbox to see if there’s any good additional information about recent articles that I can pass along to you. Good thing, too, as some readers sent over workable ideas about getting into semi-restricted state and how to handle vendor profiles for auditors. Here’s what they said. I hope this information helps you. On Semi-Restricted State TCP/IP, Suggestion #1 About my article on putting an IBM i system into semi-restricted state (where the system is down but TCP/IP is up), reader Richard Shearwood filled in some gaps about

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• SQL Finds a Delta

  December 7, 2011 Hey, Ted

  Is there a way using SQL to calculate the amount a numeric column changes from one row to the next? –Ken Yes. Here’s how it’s done. First, you need a table to use for an example. create table mydata ( Name char(8), Qty dec(3,0)) insert into mydata values ('Bob', 25), ('Bill', 85), ('Sue', 17), ('Bob', 28), ('Bob', 32), ('Bill', 105), ('Sue', 45) To pull this off, the data must be stored in the order in which it is to be retrieved. If necessary, create a temporary table to hold the sorted data. declare global temporary table SortedData as (select name,

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• Juggling With jQuery

  December 7, 2011 Paul Tuohy

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. Way back in May 2009, I wrote about some of my experiences with Javascript. Well, time has moved on and I, hopefully, have become a more experienced Javascript programmer. Part of that experience has been in coming to grips with the many Javascript libraries and frameworks that are available for download. When it comes to Javascript, here is what has been happening to me. I came across a requirement for a feature on a Web page (e.g., a calendar to allow the selection of dates), so I did

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• Blade Servers Barely Nick IBM i Market

  December 6, 2011 Dan Burger

  After nearly four years of sales, IBM finds itself with a blade server for the IBM i-based Power Systems midmarket that is unwanted and as yet unable to build a following. Adjustments have been made, incentives have been provided, but this product still seems destined to be ignored by a large majority of users. Why? The answer is complex. This product is too complex compared to the servers the community is familiar with and has come to count on. I don’t believe this is simply a case of not enough IBM i shops with a forward-thinking approach to IT. There

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• SAP to Buy Cloud HCM Vendor for $3.4 Billion

  December 6, 2011 Alex Woodie

  SAP last week announced plans to buy SuccessFactors, a cloud-based provider of human capital management (HCM) software. The $3.4 billion deal is expected to close in early 2012, and provide a long-term boost to SAP’s cloud strategy. SuccessFactors is a major player in the cloud services arena, with a reported 15 million subscribers to its HCM services across 3,500 customers in 168 countries. The publicly traded company, which has more than 1,450 employees, recorded $206 million in revenue last year, and has recently seen quarterly revenues jump 77 percent. The San Mateo, California, company has not yet been profitable,

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• Citizen Finds Cyber Monday Success with Quadrant

  December 6, 2011 Alex Woodie

  In the cutthroat retail business, one company’s IT challenge is another’s opportunity. So when clothing retailer Kohl’s presented Citizen Watch Company with new document requirements to be used when drop-shipping timepieces purchased at Kohl’s website, the 93-year-old watch company responded to the challenge with an IBM i development effort utilizing the Formtastic package from Quadrant Software. Kohl’s hoped to have many of its suppliers up to speed with its new drop-shipment program in time for Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, which officially kicks off the western world’s annual end-of-the-year consumption binge. Citizen was asked to create customized

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• Raz-Lee Gets Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus Certification

  December 6, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Raz-Lee Security‘s IBM i security suite is now certified to work with another IBM operations management suite, this time Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus. Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus provides real-time service management for data centers, network operations centers, and IT domains. The software is particularly attuned to working in large and complex networks that involve tens of millions of events per day, where it gives users the capability to ignore the non-critical problems, isolate the faults that could lead to downtime, and begin the problem escalation process. With iSecurity, Raz-Lee will handle the identification of important messages and logs originating in the IBM i

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• BitRock Supports IBM i with InstallBuilder

  December 6, 2011 Alex Woodie

  BitRock now supports IBM i with InstallBuilder, a software installation utility that’s used by software developers and vendors to create native install packages that work across all major platforms, as well as creating DVDs and CD-ROMs. The company also released InstallBuilder version 8. InstallBuilder is a time-saving utility that allows developers to create cross-platform installers, native packages, and DVDs and CD-ROMs. The software creates native binaries for all supported platforms, including Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, HP-UX, AIX, IRIX, and now IBM i. It uses an XML-based project format that allows for collaborative development, version control, and integration

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• ‘Shoot-Out’ Shows Promise of Architecture Replacement Over Screen Scraping

  December 6, 2011 Alex Woodie

  What could be faster than screen scraping? According to development tool maker mrc, which participated in the recent “Application Modernisation Shoot Out” in the U.K., it was able to completely re-architect a system in less time than it would have taken to simply screen scrape a green-screen app into a GUI. Mrc was one of six vendors participating in the Shoot Out, which was hosted last month at the COMMON GB event put on by National iSystems User Group (NiSUG). Each of the six vendors–including Attachmate, CoralTree, Utilties400, SpaceTec , and Logicmate–used a different approach

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• Symtrax Unhooks Web Reporting Tool from Excel

  December 6, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Symtrax last week unveiled StarQuery Web, a new addition to its StarQuery suite that enables users to create and access reports through a Web browser, without the need for Excel. The software replaces StarQuery for the Web, which required a copy of Excel to be on hand. With StarQuery Web, Symtrax has put a complete report-authoring tool online for the first time. Users no longer need to work within the constraints of Excel or other spreadsheet software, as was the case with the company’s previous Web interface for its StarQuery suite, called StarQuery for the Web. Working with StarQuery Web

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