• Mad Dog 21/21: How To Downgrade Your Business Partner

  August 22, 2011 Hesh Wiener

  According to IBM reseller Glasshouse Systems, Big Blue promised it wouldn’t give a rival the 21 percent extra discount Glasshouse was getting in the pending deal with financial services firm SEI. Glasshouse appreciated the incentive and poured extra effort into its sales effort at SEI Investments. Surprise! SEI jilted Glasshouse and signed with rival reseller Mainline. Glasshouse took a beating. The upshot, Glasshouse pleaded, was that IBM, that double-crosser, ought to make it whole. Stuff and nonsense, said Honorable Anita Brody. The Glasshouse claim fails; IBM prevails. The case is now a model for users

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• As I See It: Paying Attention

  August 22, 2011 Victor Rozek

  “How the hell did this happen?” The late fiction writer Robert B. Parker called it “humanity’s cry.” For those not paying attention, that always seems to be the question, after the fact. Why are jobs so scarce? Why did the deficit explode? What happened to the economy? Tardy but reasonable questions given the misinformation surrounding our seemingly rapid decline. If you’ve lost your job, or are fearful of losing it; if you’re searching for work but can’t find it; if you’re unable to make your mortgage payment, or know someone who has lost their home, it’d be nice to at

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• EnterpriseDB Sets Sights on Oracle’s MySQL

  August 22, 2011 Alex Woodie

  It’s no secret that EnterpriseDB, the company that sells and supports commercial versions of the open source PostgreSQL database, is going after MySQL. The company, which says revenues are growing at a 2X annual pace, senses that Oracle is ostracizing its MySQL customers and partners–something that IBM i customers can relate to. But while PostgreSQL makes inroads in the X64 and Itanium markets, it’s not clear if the database will find a similar reception in Power Systems. MySQL is undoubtedly one of the commercial open source success stories of the last decade. The open source RDBMS found a

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• IBM Taps Software Exec For Power Systems Marketing

  August 22, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It’s summer and that is the traditional time that IBM makes changes in its executive lineup. At the end of July last year, Big Blue merged its Systems and Technology Group and Software Group into one giant behemoth under general manager Steve Mills while also gluing back together two halves of the Global Services giant that were artificially separated a few years back. This year, the changes in the Power Systems division are a little less dramatic, but important nonetheless. Jeff Howard, VP of System x marketing When IBM converged its System i and System p Power-based server units

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• More Details Emerge on Future Power7+ and Power8 Chips

  August 22, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Back in early May, I gave you what little information I had been able to gather up on the impending Power7+ and future Power8 processor designs and their possible announcement dates in Power Systems machines. The data was a little thin, and intentionally so on the part of Big Blue. But with Oracle kicking up a big fuss over Intel‘s Itanium processor roadmap, which the software giant is saying is a dead end, it looks like IBM decided it was time to be a more specific. Not terribly more specific, mind you. Server makers and chip makers don’t

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• IBM i Server Gets Hip to QR Codes

  August 22, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Quick Response (QR) barcodes have taken the consumer world by storm. The stamp-sized barcodes–commonly used to transmit a website address to a smartphone through its camera–are being affixed to all kinds of things, including magazine ads, Web pages, storefront displays, and even tattoos. And now they’re becoming popular on the IBM i server through the work of vendors like ACOM Solutions, which recently announced support for generating QR codes. The QR barcode was created in 1994 to assist in tracking parts in the automotive supply chain. Consumers in Japan and South Korea have been using it to share information

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• Attachmate Bolsters Security of MFT Offering

  August 16, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Attachmate this month unveiled a new release of its managed file transfer (MFT) offering that can provide secure file transfers among a variety of platforms, including IBM i. With FileXpress version 7.1, Attachmate added another layer of security when using the SSH-based secure file transfer protocol (SFTP). It also bolstered support for AS2, expanded its platform coverage, and added a new smart client. The FileXpress family of products is an Attachmate-branded version of the CyberFusion Integration (CFI) product that was originally developed by Proginet (now part of TIBCO Software). The product uses a proprietary protocol based on UDP and

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• ASCI Delivers More Application Hooks with Job Scheduler

  August 16, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Advanced Systems Concepts (ASCI) unveiled a new release of its ActiveBatch job scheduler that features better integration with enterprise software from SAP, Informatica, and Zenoss. ActiveBatch is an enterprise job scheduler that helps organizations manage workloads running across IBM i, Windows, Linux, Unix, mainframe, OpenVMS, and Mac OS environments. The software supports time-based and trigger-based scheduling, and features an array of templates designed to simplify implementation. Those templates were refined with the release of ActiveBatch version 8 service pack 2, which ASCI unveiled last week. Chief among the new features is better out-of-the-box integration with several SAP

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• ASNA Becomes RPG Open Access Reseller

  August 16, 2011 Alex Woodie

  ASNA last week announced that it is now reselling IBM‘s Rational Open Access: RPG Edition technology. The move, which comes on the heel of IBM’s decision to open up the distribution channel for the product known as OAR, will make it easier for ASNA customers to modernize their 5250 apps with ASNA’s Wings software. “It’s true that initially IBM was a little clumsy with the marketing and distribution of Open Access,” ASNA U.S. president Anne Ferguson says in a press release. “But by making ASNA an Open Access reseller, IBM is resolving the problem in the best way possible.”

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• CCSS Gives Pointers on Lights Out IBM i Automation

  August 16, 2011 Alex Woodie

  The ongoing economic malaise affecting North America and Europe has put unprecedented pressures on IT staffs to do more with less. Without the luxury of multiple IT operators on hand to baby sit critical servers, IT managers have had to get smart about how to accomplish required tasks. Now, IBM i systems management specialist CCSS is sharing some of the tricks it’s picked up in a recent best practices guide focused on “lights out” automation. In “Lights Out IBM i Automation–Back to Black,” CCSS explores some of the common occurrences that prevent IBM i shops from turning off the lights.

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