Four Hundred Monitor, February 8
February 8, 2017 Dan Burger
While IT Jungle is pretty thorough when it comes to covering the IBM i and Power Systems market as well as adjacent areas that will ultimately affect the IBM midrange community, we are not the only source of information out there.
That was why we created Four Hundred Monitor so many years ago: to make you aware of all of the other relevant content out there on the Internet as well as to have a list of new resources and a calendar of events, all in one place. Now, Four Hundred Monitor is being incorporated into our flagship publication, The Four Hundred. We will end the week with two services in our Wednesday edition of The Four Hundred, with Four Hundred Monitor appearing in story four like clockwork and with the IBM i PTF Guide appearing in story five right behind it.
Top Stories From Outside The Jungle
(IBM Systems Magazine) IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will writes about the importance of open source technologies in IBM i development past, present, and future. He discusses technology that fills a gap, the potential adoption rate, and longevity. Watch for additional investments in the open source space.
(InformationWeek) The biggest obstacle to agility at most organizations isn’t how hard people work. It’s the silos between those hard-working people. Silos stop end-to-end business processes dead in their tracks. And they create an environment where different teams have different agendas, cultures and processes.
(IBM Systems Magazine) Someone needs to take care of your database. Not the nanny business administration tasks that many other databases need, but you should know the most expensive database workloads and the most expensive database queries. And you should understand your index strategy and how healthy it is. Scott Forstie explains the benefits in this article.
(CMS Wire) Many businesses recognize application modernization is one way to mitigate competitive pressures, rising customer demands and rapidly shifting business dynamics. But before embarking on a legacy modernization initiative, it’s important to visualize what you want to achieve. Once you have that clear road-map in sight, you can then determine how to be mindful of certain things.
(CIO) Indian outsourcing companies may be challenged the President’s plan to bring jobs back to the U.S. Along with that, there’s uncertainty surrounding proposed legislation governing the H-1B visa program. Will the underlying shortage of IT workers in the U.S. factor into either of these policy directions?
(ComputerWorld) More than two years ago, IBM and Apple became partners with the idea of creating sophisticated applications of enterprise users. So far, that collaboration has produced more than 100 industry apps that are in use across hundreds of enterprises. Their next evolution of made for business apps will incorporate IBM Watson for a “more interactive mobile experience that lifts employee productivity.”
Redbooks, White Papers, and Other Resources
(IBM) The IBM i strategy and roadmap is billed as an executive guide to IBM’s strategy and roadmap for it integrated operating environment for Power Systems. It continues to trumpet the traditional strengths that were created with the AS/400 and updates the system’s capabilities by describing modernization achievements in areas such as cloud, mobile, and analytics.
(IBM i Global Support Center) – Technical Support Videos from the IBM i Global Support Center in Rochester, Minnesota, are available on YouTube. Subject matter includes Access Client Solutions, Save/Restore, Digital Certificate Manager, Installation Manager, and adding IBM i partitions, just to name a few.
(IBM) The security and integrity features of the IBM i Power are legendary, but are also widely misunderstood. In this video, Jeff Uehling, business architect for IBM i security, discusses the value of running business applications on a platform that provides superior protection for data.
(IBM) This document is intended to address the most frequently asked questions concerning IBM i performance on Power Systems. It provides best practice guidelines for the most commonly seen performance issues.
(IBM) This Redbook was written to help developers understand what modern RPG looks like and how to move from older versions of RPG to a newer, modern version. It also covers the basics of Integrated Language Environment (ILE), interfacing with many other languages, and the tools for doing development on IBM i.
Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings
February 9 — Wauwatosa, Wisconsin – The Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association monthly meeting will include two speakers. Byron Franz, special agent for the FBI, will present a session on the theft of business information by malicious hackers and insiders at 4 p.m. After dinner and networking, Jim Buck, president of the WMCPA, will discuss IBM i modernization and how it affects the recruitment of IT staff. The meeting will take place at Aliotos, located at 3041 North Mayfair Road.
February 9 — St. Louis, Missouri – Rational Developer for i is the feature presentation at the regular monthly meeting of the Gateway/400 Group, a System i user group serving the greater St. Louis area. Eric Simpson, an RDi developer in the IBM Toronto Laboratory, will be the guest speaker. His remote presentation will include new features available in RDi 9.5.1 such as Mac support, Kerberos, IFS project support, plus the new refactoring capability in 9.5.1.1. The meeting begins with lunch at noon and the presentation following lunch. The meeting location is Spazio’s restaurant at 12031 Lackland Road. RSVP no later than Monday before the meeting date. The presentation is available via a remote hookup for those who cannot attend.
February 21 — Auburn Hills, Michigan – The Southeast Michigan IBM i User Group meeting will feature guest speaker, PHP industry expert Alan Seiden. He will discuss creative ways to use PHP, not only to create new GUI front-ends, but to add features to existing interactive RPG programs. Getting started with PHP and learning how PHP integrates with RPG and traditional resources also will be discussed. The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. and will be held at the offices of Cooper Standard located at 2110 Executive Hills Court.
February 21 — Edina, Minnesota – Robert Andrews, a consultant and educator specializing in security, database and business intelligence on IBM technologies, will be presenting a session on IBM i security at the monthly meeting of QUSER, the local user group for IBM midrange professionals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The presentation will include the IBM i security enhancement called Authority Collection, plus new support to Audit Network Communication sessions into and out of the IBM i server. The meeting begins at 2 p.m. at the offices of Sirius Computer Systems located at 7760 France Avenue South, Suite 1310 (top floor).
February 21 — Lombard, Illinois – A discussion on cloud virtualization will be featured during the monthly meeting of the OMNI User Group. This session will cover planning, design and best practices for transitioning from a traditional IBM Power deployment to a secure, internally hosted, private cloud. Guest speaker is Larry Bolhuis, an author, conference speaker, and long-time IBM i community volunteer. He’s a subject matter expert on topics pertaining to systems design and management, networking and connectivity, work management, PTF, and Hardware Management Console topics. The meeting begins at 5 p.m. with registration and networking, followed by dinner at 6, and the business meeting and presentation at 6:45. It will take place at Casey’s Restaurant, which is at 415 E. North Avenue.
February 21 — Nashville, Tennessee – This meeting of the Tennessee IBM Mid-Range User Group will feature a presentation on activation groups by Steve Croy, president of iSoftwerks, a company that provides development services for IBM mid-range computers. His session will include information on activation group scope, activation group scope management, and managing ILE activation groups. The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m., with dinner at 6 and the presentation at 6:45. The location is Shoney’s restaurant at McGavock Pike.
March 14 -16 — Delavan, Wisconsin – The Wisconsin Midrange Computing Professionals Association Spring Technical Conference is the largest conference in the Midwest. It features more than 50 informative presentations on current topics such as SQL, PHP, RPG, .NET and IBM administration. A full session agenda will be available online soon. In addition to the all-day technical session on Tuesday, there is a one-day event highlighting the opportunities for women in IT. The tech conference includes a vendor expo and is hosted by the LakeLawn Resort.
March 21-23 — Orlando, Florida – The RPG & DB2 Summit, hosted by System i Developer partners Susan Gantner, Jon Paris and Paul Tuohy, features three days of training that modernizes and expands IBM i development skills features three days of training that modernizes and expands IBM i development skills. An optional fourth day of hands-on workshops on March 20, provides an intensive dive into a choice of SQL, RSE/RDi, Service Programs or PHP sessions. The conference focuses on helping IBM i developers achieve continuous skills improvement based on current tips and techniques that can be implemented immediately. An early registration rate of $1,295 is available through February 17.
April 10-12 — Framingham, Massachusetts – The Northeast IBM i User Group Conference features more than 70 educational sessions in six skills categories. It offers the opportunity to learn about new technologies, engage with vendors to discuss packaged software advancements, hear IBM i executives and lead developers discuss products and roadmaps for the platform, and gain knowledge that can benefit your company and your career. The user groups of the Northeast come from the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
May 2 & 3 — Markham, Ontario, Canada – The Toronto User Group’s annual technical education conference, TEC 2017, features IBM i-centric subjects that include: RPG application development, Web and mobile development, application modernization, accessing and optimizing DB2 data, performance management, and system management. The conference will take place at the SAVOY Conference Centre (Monte Carlo Inn) located at 7255 Warden Avenue in Markham. Early registration discounts are available.
May 7-10 – Orlando, Florida – The 2017 COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition is the largest IBM i educational event of the year. It includes more than 300 sessions related to IBM i, as well as AIX and Linux. Open source, high availability, security, DB2, and application development are a few of the popular skill-building topics. The agenda includes all-day pre-conference workshops, open labs, and a wide variety of lecture-type sessions presented by subject matter experts. An early registration discount ($1,595 for members; $1,895 for non-members) is available through December 30.
