• TRs for IBM i 7.3 and 7.2: Enhancements, No Big Surprises

  October 4, 2017 Dan Burger

  With each Technology Refresh, we are reminded that the pace of enhancements IBM brings to its IBM i operating system and related software products is significant and that certain areas are more significant than others. So, the IBM i community is either aligned with these upgrades and eager to put them to use or it’s not yet ready, willing or able to be technologically current. As usual, there are IBM i shops watching as the enhancements unfold and making decisions on whether the enhancements can deliver benefits to their business in terms of productivity and solving business challenges.

  Steve Will, …

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• Evaluating Your IBM i Encryption Options

  September 25, 2017 Alex Woodie

  In the wake of the Equifax breach, companies are taking a hard look at their security practices, including the use of encryption that renders data unreadable. While database encryption is not a panacea for securing a Db2 for i database – especially if there are other vulnerabilities in an IBM i system – it can play an important role in protecting sensitive data from leaking out into the world.

  Encryption has emerged as a topic in the wake of the massive data breach at Equifax, which lost critical data like names, addresses, and Social Security numbers for 143 million Americans, …

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• How SAP Complexity Impacts Performance on IBM i

  September 13, 2017 Alex Woodie

  The IBM i server and SAP’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is a powerful combination that propels thousands of businesses around the world. The duo’s success is apparent to those who pay attention, even if it’s not widely acknowledged. But ensuring smooth SAP operations on IBM i is not always as straightforward as it could be, especially for those uninitiated with the complexity of this setup.

  The fact that SAP has its own way of doing things is nothing new. Ever since a group of five former IBMers from Germany led by Hasso Plattner formed up to create the …

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• DB2 For i Support Now Offered by Rimini Street

  June 26, 2017 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops now have another option for obtaining technical support and maintenance services in support their DB2 for i environment: Rimini Street. And in some cases, owing to the uniquely integrated nature of this platform, the vendor will even provide support for the IBM i operating system as well.

  Earlier this month, the Las Vegas, Nevada, company announced that it’s now offering third-party support services for all three versions of IBM‘s DB2 database – DB2 for i, DB2 for z/OS, and DB2 for Linux, Unix, and Windows (a.k.a. “Cousin LUWy”), in addition to the SQL Server database from …

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• A New Data Connection From IBM i To Watson Analytics

  June 14, 2017 Alex Woodie

  Big data analytics is everywhere these days. It simply can’t be helped. And now that IBM is supporting the capability to load DB2 for i data directly into the Watson analytics service, it could be worth your IBM i time to check out what IBM has cooking in Cognitive.

  IT Jungle recently checked in with Steve Sibley, IBM’s vice president and business line executive in charge of systems, to talk about the latest developments with Watson, including the new DB2 for IBM i Connect tile on BlueMix.

  The new tile “is designed to make it easier for our clients to …

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• CNX Kickstarts Development with Valence 5.1

  May 24, 2017 Alex Woodie

  A new release of the Valence Framework from CNX will enable IBM i shops to get more Web programming and modernization work done with even less effort than before.

  The Chicago-based company has been speaking the “less is more” mantra since the 2014 launch of Valence 4.0, one of the first releases that included Nitro add-on tools that handle tasks on behalf of the user. After all, why should the user get bogged down in the intricacies of coding JavaScript when software can do it instead?

  Nitro’s auto-coding capabilities are once again front-and-center in Valence 5.1, which CNX launched …

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• Secrets Of IBM i Magic Act Revealed

  April 17, 2017 Dan Burger

  Can IBM i shops find a way to replace their RPG-oriented staffs with magicians? The answer, in many cases, is that they already have. The RPG staff members are the magicians. They’ve abra-ka-dabra-ed their way to doing more with less for something like 30 years. The clever companies employing these magicians have parlayed this IT staff magic into new technology investments that perpetuate the more for less phenomenon.

  One of those technologies is the modern managed services provider, which causes system management to disappear and gives the IT magicians something new to work on . . . like database modernization, …

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• Why You Should Hire An IBM i Database Engineer

  February 15, 2017 Alex Woodie

  You likely know the IBM i platform as an all-in-one, self-contained bundle of computational glory and efficiency that doesn’t need an army of specialists to run like the platforms from “those other guys” do, thankyouverymuch. While that largely continues to be the case, you may consider making one exception for a certain type of technical expert: the database engineer.

  There’s a growing chorus coming out of IBM Rochester that IBM i shops should consider hiring database engineers, or DBEs. Folks like Alison Butterill, the product offering manager for the IBM i server, DB2 for i Business Architect Scott Forstie, …

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