• The Dollars And Sense Of Business Continuity

  September 21, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Those companies that have been in the IBM midrange market for a long time and are still alive and kicking have undergone a lot of change over the decades. But as is also the case, the core people at the company have been there for a long, long time and they understand how to leverage change to drive business and absorb change to help customers cope.

  That is one of the secrets of longevity for Datanational, founded in September 1979, which is located in the Farmington Hills suburbs of Detroit and which has always had a strong presence in …

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• The Converged Systems Conundrum

  September 21, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The idea behind converged and hyperconverged systems was one that AS/400 and IBM i shops have long been familiar with, but which customers using other systems had become unfamiliar with or had never known as they adopted other systems for their mission critical systems. It’s so simple that it can be expressed in one word: integration. Yes, that’s the i in IBM i, and while this is the hallmark of the System/38, the System/36, and the AS/400 platforms from decades ago, ironically the IBM i platform is not considered a converged or hyperconverged platform by the market researchers at …

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• COVID-19 Delivers 2020 Clarity for Omnichannel

  September 9, 2020 Alex Woodie

  The viral pandemic is impacting society in profound and multi-faceted ways. In the consumer goods supply chain, which includes a good chunk of IBM i shops, COVID-19 is forcing manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to get a lot nimbler in a hurry — particularly as it relates to diversifying sales channels and embracing omnichannel fulfillment strategies.

  Ecommerce has exploded during COVID-19 and the ensuing lockdowns, as consumers elect to make purchases online instead of venturing into stores, which raises the risk of being exposed to the novel coronavirus. According to Adobe Analytics’ Digital Economy Index, ecommerce spending surged by 78 …

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• JD Edwards Co-Founder McVaney Leaves A Legacy

  September 2, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Ed McVaney, who emerged from a frugal childhood in Nebraska to eventually lead one of the most successful enterprise software companies in the world, died this past June at the age of 79.

  McVaney is best remembered as the co-founder and CEO of JD Edwards, the Denver, Colorado-based company that would become known as the gold-standard for ERP software on the AS/400 and its predecessor and successor machines. In 2016, more than a decade after JD Edwards was sold to PeopleSoft, McVaney founded NextWorld, a cloud ERP software company that is run by his daughter, Kylee.

  McVaney was the …

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• Drilling Down Into The Power10 Chip Architecture

  August 24, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Last week, we told you some general things about the future Power10 chip from IBM based on a roadmap briefing that we got from the IBM tech team ahead of their presentation at the Hot Chips 32 chip conference last week. IBM was gracious enough to let us talk about the Power10 chip generally before that presentation, because we have a Monday morning deadline no matter what. And this week, we can drill down into the Power10 architectural details a bit more.

  The presentation at Hot Chips was given by William Starke, the chief architect of the Power10 processor who …

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• You’re Only As Old As The Applications You Feel

  June 24, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  You didn’t actually think that we would have forgotten that Sunday, June 21^st, was the 32^nd birthday of the Application System/400, did you? Of course we didn’t forget.

  It was also Father’s Day and the first day of summer, and to be perfectly frank (Soltis), I got a new smoker from my wife and I spent the afternoon learning about the joys of hickory smoked barbeque ribs. It is a gift that just keeps giving, because I made about 40 pounds of meat in various kinds and flavors because I needed to try everything all at once. …

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• Abacus Cloud Customers Enjoy Wider Ecosystem

  June 22, 2020 Alex Woodie

  For many years, Abacus Solutions ran its private IBM i cloud business out of a commercial datacenter close to its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. A few years back, Abacus decided to move its clients’ machines to a new datacenter, and in addition to getting better disaster preparedness, the move opened up a whole new ecosystem of services for its IBM i customers.

  The move from Abacus’ old datacenters into new datacenters was completed in 2019, but only recently did Abacus Solutions announce it. To get the low down on the big move, IT Jungle recently caught up with Patrick Schutz, …

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• IBM Wheels And Deals With Solution Edition Booster Pack

  June 8, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  A few weeks ago, we told you about the double memory and double I/O request for price quote (RPQ) special deals that IBM quietly rolled out in April without putting out any announcement letters and that are still in effect until June 30. So consider this a reminder that these deals are still out there and now is a good time to invest in new Power9 iron if you want to pay less for it than you otherwise might.

  But that is not all you can get. As it turns out, Big Blue is revamping its IBM i Solution Edition …

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• The End is Near for Zend Server Basic PHP

  May 20, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Zend Server Basic, the free PHP runtime used by thousands of IBM i shops, will cease being offered starting in July 2021. That’s the word from Perforce, the company that now owns Zend and its lineup of PHP tools and technologies. The replacement, of course, is the new community edition of PHP that became available via RPM in late 2019.

  Starting in 2006, Zend Technology began to develop a special version of its PHP runtime for IBM i, which was then called i5/OS. This offering, dubbed Zend Core for i5/OS, provided a familiar way for users of the iSeries server …

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• Raz-Lee Launches Web Interface for iSecurity Suite

  May 20, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Green screen interfaces were just fine in the old days of the AS/400. But today, many IBM i administrators would prefer a little more color with their screens. For IBM i shops that use software from Raz-Lee Security to police their system, they now have the option of using a Web-based graphical user interface (GUI) to interact with the company’s entire suite of tools.

  Raz-Lee has included GUIs in its offerings for many years. In the 2000s, it developed a Java-based interface for certain components of its iSecurity Suite. More recently, it developed an Eclipse-based product called the iSecurity GUI …

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