• Entry Server Bang For The Buck, IBM i Versus Red Hat Linux

  November 11, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In last week’s issue, we did a competitive analysis of the entry, single-socket Power S914 machines running IBM i against Dell PowerEdge servers using various Intel Xeon processors as well as an AMD Epyc chip running a Windows Server and SQL Server stack from Microsoft. This week, and particularly in the wake of IBM’s recent acquisition of Red Hat, we are looking at how entry IBM i platforms rate in terms of cost and performance against X86 machines running a Linux stack and an appropriate open source relational database that has enterprise support.

  Just as a recap from last week’s …

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• The All-Knowing, Benevolent Dictator Of Code

  November 6, 2019 Sebastien Julliand

  Not every software project can have an all-knowing benevolent dictator looking through every line of code, and even all projects could have such a person to oversee the quality of the code, there is no reason to not automate as much of this very important code review job as is possible.

  Luckily for IBM i shops, there is such a tool to help with code review, and in that sense, we suppose, you can install rather than hire that all-knowing benevolent dictator of application code. It’s called, appropriately enough, CodeChecker, and it has been available from ARCAD Software for quite …

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• IBM i TRs Bring Database Enhancements, Too

  October 30, 2019 Alex Woodie

  The heart of the IBM i server is its database, so it’s natural that we would see some enhancements to Db2 for i with delivery of IBM i 7.4 Technology Refresh 1 and 7.3 TR 7 next month. The new features may not be earth-shaking, but they deliver some useful functionality nonetheless.

  Let’s start with some foundational changes to the database itself, including the way that database engineers architect the tables that store information in the database. With 7.4 TR1, IBM i shops can now add a new child table to the database without having an exclusive lock on the …

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• Guru: Debugging Common Table Expressions

  October 21, 2019 Ted Holt

  I cannot say enough good things about common table expressions. Words like wonderful and marvelous don’t begin to describe them. However, CTEs do add a bit of complexity to an SQL query, and when the result set doesn’t contain the correct results, any common table expression can be the culprit. Fortunately, debugging queries with common table expressions is not difficult.

  To illustrate what I mean, let’s assume we have a query that retrieves shipment information for one day. It involves a few tables:

  • a one-row table containing a shipment date
  • a table of shipment header information
  • a customer master table

  …

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• IBM i 7.3 And 7.4 Get Their Autumn Tech Refreshes

  October 9, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Big Blue is hosting its IBM Systems Technical University this week, and used the occasion to quietly launch the Technology Refreshes, or TRs as they are known, for IBM i releases 7.3 and 7.4. If you were running around the Venetian Hotel, you could probably stitch together the extent of the updates to the platform, and to be honest, we are still trying to get all of the details, which were not available as we went to press.

  We will tell you what we know now, and then circle back and drill down into the details as appropriate.

  First of …

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• Raz-Lee Asks ‘What If’ With Firewall

  October 9, 2019 Alex Woodie

  Security administrators who feel challenged to keep up with the volume and variety of log data emanating from the IBM i server may be interested in the new “What If” features that Raz-Lee Security recently added to Firewall, its exit-point management solution for IBM i.

  Firewall helps to guard network access points to IBM i servers, including TCP/IP, FTP, Telnet, DHCP, and other protocols. The software lets administrators set global and specific access rules for groups of IBM i servers and users, as well as controlling access to IBM i objects and providing the ability to set exceptions for specific …

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• Guru: Edit Result Sets in Run SQL Scripts

  October 7, 2019 Paul Tuohy

  Before getting into the detail in this article, I want it to be clear that I do NOT (in any way) advocate the direct editing of data in a production database. But when it comes to a test database, then the ability to directly edit data is invaluable.

  Back in the days of System i Navigator, you could right click on a table, select the Edit option and a window would open containing the contents of the table. You could directly edit the contents of any cell. Rows could be inserted or deleted using the Rows option on the menu. …

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• Power7 And Power7+ Will Truly Be Dead At The End Of 2020

  October 7, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There are five dates that define the life of a piece of software and hardware: When it is announced, when it is generally available, when it is withdrawn from marketing, when service is withdrawn on the product, and when extended service (which is limited and which costs a lot more money than regular service) is dropped and the product is truly done for.

  With software, IBM sometimes provides service, service extension, extended service extension, and even extended-extended service extension. I am not making this up, and yes it sounds like the Monty Python SPAM skit. Take a look:

  As you …

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• Midrange Dynamics Dives Into REST With Acquisition

  October 2, 2019 Alex Woodie

  Change management specialist Midrange Dynamics this month announced that it has acquired Rest4i, the UK-based developer of a native IBM i framework for integrating RPG and SQL applications with REST-based APIs. The move positions Midrange Dynamics as a player in the rapidly evolving world of microservices.

  Rest4i was founded several years ago by Stuart Milligan, who headed up DB2 database modernization firm Databorough before selling it to Fresche Solutions (then Fresche Legacy) back in 2013. Milligan foresaw the coming wave of microservices and developed software to “turn the IBM i into a complete REST API server and the RPG developers …

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• Guru: MERGE, Chicken, And Eggs

  September 30, 2019 Ted Holt

  Which came first: the chicken or the egg? I don’t have time to ponder such trivialities. However, I am glad to know that SQL has a way to help me with chicken-and-egg database updates, i.e., when two statements need to run but each politely needs for the other to go first.

  Suppose you support an IBM i system that keeps up with inventory. It has an item master table (physical file) that stores general information such as a description, the standard cost, and the list price of an item.

  create table ItemMaster
    (ItemNumber     char(6),
     Revision       dec(3),
     Description    char(20),
     Cost           dec(5,2),
     

  …

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