• Reader Feedback On Where In The World Is Web Query?

  November 26, 2012 Hey, Dan

  Regarding your recent Web Query article: I think one of the big impediments of the QU2 Web Query product is that it was not what a lot of customers were wanting. Most of the customers that I deal with are in small-to-medium shops that do not have a deep bench of IT people and skills. (One of the main selling points of IBM i is the ease of administration, of course). What they were really wanting was basically QU1 Query with a simple web interface to build queries and, more importantly, make basic web (well Intranet) reports and Excel tables.

  …

  Read more

• Mad Dog 21/21: The Harder They Fall

  November 26, 2012 Hesh Wiener

  The printer business is disappearing. But a successor market is forming around a new kind of device, an image and media server that will absorb printers, scanners, copiers, faxes, and more. The process is actually well along already. But, surprisingly, the big names in the printer business are caught up but haven’t caught on. They worry about the fiscal cliff when they should contemplate Jimmy Cliff. They are haunted by the ghost of Jacob Marley when they should be celebrating with the spirit of Bob Marley. Give me a couple minutes and I will show you. Like so

  …

  Read more

• Microsoft Targets IBM i, z/OS Migrations With PMA Program

  November 26, 2012 Alex Woodie

  You may recall that, several years back, Microsoft ran the Midrange Alliance Program (MAP) and Mainframe Modernization Alliance (MMA), two marketing and awareness campaigns focused on moving applications and workloads off IBM‘s iSeries and mainframe servers. While the MAP and MMA fizzled away, Microsoft has a new group called the Platform Modernization Alliance (PMA) that is gaining attention with IBM partners and customers. It is not news that the so-called “distributed” Wintel and Lintel server platforms are dominant in the IT industry. They have been for a while now; the war ended years ago. Consider these numbers: Out of

  …

  Read more

• IBM Ponies Up $4 Billion In Financing For Partner Push

  November 26, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM spends billions and billions of dollars on dividends (which is fine) and stock buybacks (which I have a problem with on the scale that Big Blue does it). I spend a lot of time complaining that there are better things that IBM could do with the billions in cash it generates running its business, from investing in new businesses, competing more aggressively on price, or doing acquisitions. Another option, and one that IBM has been doing in the past year, is to help the partner channel and the IT shops it serves get the financing they need to do

  …

  Read more

• Surprise! Power7+ Chips Launched In Flex System p260 Servers

  November 26, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Big Blue was pretty clear that it was not going to roll out any more servers using its Power7+ processors when it launched the Power 770+ and Power 780+ enterprise-class boxes back on October 3, but somewhere along the way, someone either changed their minds inside of IBM or didn’t get the memo that the Flex System p260 server nodes would be upgraded with the Power7+ chips. Because that, in fact, is what happened on November 13, just before we took a break for the Thanksgiving holiday. And those new p260 machines give IBM i and AIX shops one more

  …

  Read more

• Maxava Says HA Cloud Business Is Booming

  November 19, 2012 Alex Woodie

  The hosted high availability (HA) software business is taking off in a big way for Maxava. The company claims to have between 150 and 200 customers utilizing its software through the cloud, and that cloud deals now account for half of its sales pipeline. This led the company to lay claim earlier this month to being the number one provider of cloud-based HA software in the IBM i market. IT Jungle spoke with Maxava’s senior vice president Simon O’Sullivan last week to give him a chance to back up the big claims Maxava was making about its presence in

  …

  Read more

• IBM Mothballs QLogic InfiniBand Switches, Power Systems Drives

  November 15, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  For many years, IBM didn’t have its own network and storage switching business, and it OEMed or resold products from others, including gear from Cisco Systems, Brocade Communications, Voltaire (which was eaten by Mellanox Technologies two years ago), Juniper, and Blade Network Technologies. Since that time, Cisco has jumped into the server biz, IBM bought BNT, and Intel bought the InfiniBand biz from QLogic (among many other deals that did not directly affect Big Blue). Now, IBM is paring back on its catalog a bit, and it looks like QLogic is being shown the door on Power

  …

  Read more

• LANSA Launches LongRange University

  November 15, 2012 Alex Woodie

  LANSA last week announced LongRange University, a series of free online videos aimed at helping customers learn how to make the most effective use of LongRange, the IBM i-based mobile application development tool that it launched earlier this year. LongRange enables IBM i developers to use their RPG, COBOL, and CL skills to develop mobile applications that run natively on iOS and Android. The software–which consists of a server component for IBM i, a development studio that lives in Windows, and a mobile client device–works by transforming DDS display files residing in IBM i programs into graphical displays that are

  …

  Read more

• Admin Alert: A Checklist For Performing IBM i Planned Maintenance

  November 14, 2012 Joe Hertvik

  Taking down an IBM i system for planned system maintenance involves more than just performing the maintenance itself. To keep processing running without issue, you need to ensure that the machine ends cleanly before maintenance begins and that it restarts smoothly after maintenance completes. To that end, here’s a starter checklist for how to take down and restart an IBM i machine during planned system maintenance. The Phases Of System Maintenance When planning IBM i system maintenance, it’s helpful to divide the maintenance up into three sets of tasks that you must successfully complete. These task sets are: Pre-maintenance tasks

  …

  Read more

• Use SQL To Update A Sequence Number

  November 14, 2012 Hey, Ted

  Is it possible to use a single SQL statement to assign an ascending sequence number to a column in a table? I’d like the sequence number to start at 10 and increment by 10 as every row is updated so that the number column in the updated rows would be 10, 20, 30, etc. –Doug I know a way, Doug. However, let me say up front that I’ve only played with this. That is, I’ve never used it in a production environment. I can’t speak to how practical it might be or what you might need to watch out for.

  …

  Read more

Previous Articles Next Articles