• Admin Alert: Major And Minor IBM i Power System Upgrades

  July 10, 2013 Joe Hertvik

  When upgrading your current IBM i hardware, you may have more choices than you think. With the incredible capacity built into late model System i and Power systems, you may be able to perform a minor upgrade on existing hardware, rather than moving to the latest Power 7+ machines. Here are some tips on how you might be able to stretch your existing hardware rather than buying a new machine. What Can You Do? If you sized your current machine correctly, you may have more than enough excess capacity to stay with the existing hardware for a few more years.

  …

  Read more

• First Normal Form On The Fly

  July 10, 2013 Ted Holt

  Converting normalized data into a repeating group is a common requirement, and we have discussed that topic several times in Four Hundred Guru, even in this issue. Sometimes the need arises to convert data in the other direction, i.e., to convert a repeating group to a normalized form. This is a handy technique to know, and it’s easy. Suppose you’ve been given a spreadsheet with 13 columns of data. The first column is an item number. The next 12 columns are replacement costs for each month. You’ve been asked to load the data into a normalized table (physical

  …

  Read more

• Presenting Vertical Data Horizontally

  July 10, 2013 Victor Pisman

  Presenting “vertical” data in a “horizontal” format is a challenging task in data management. Here is one method you can use to make SQL carry out this type of transformation. Consider table CUSTGRP, which has two fields: a customer ID and a group code. Notice that one customer can have multiple group codes. ID GROUP 100 C 100 F 100 D 200 A 200 E 200 D 500 G 700 B 700 D Here’s one way to

  …

  Read more

• Away With The SQL Slash Separator

  June 19, 2013 Michael Sansoterra

  One potentially confusing aspect of programming SQL in DB2 for i for non-IBMers is the use of the forward slash character to qualify an SQL object with a schema. IBM i devs don’t have a problem with the slash because we recognize it as the character we use when qualifying objects while tooling around the i/OS green screen. Others database devs may wonder what sophisticated function the slash serves. However, in IBM i 7.1, IBM introduced a change in DB2 Group PTF SF99701 Level 15 that is worth noting. When using the system naming convention, developers can now

  …

  Read more

• Removing Members From And Deleting An i OS Group Profile

  June 19, 2013 Hey, Joe

  We’re cleaning up some of our IBM i operating system user groups and we need to remove 100 users from a group profile. Is there a way to do that without having to go into each user profile and individually remove their group memberships? We also need to delete some of the group profiles themselves. I’m on i 6.1. –Jack This is really easy to do if you use the System i Navigator (OpsNav) program that comes with IBM i Access for Windows V7R1M0. Here’s how to use OpsNav to: 1) remove a group of users from an IBM i

  …

  Read more

• Creating And Using i Project

  June 19, 2013 Susan Gantner

  In my previous tip, I introduced i Projects and some ways in which I use them in my development life. In this tip, I’ll show you how to create and populate your projects, and how to make use of them. Let’s first create an i Project. The easiest way to get started is to go into the i Projects perspective that is built in to RDP. WDSC also allows for the use of Projects, only they are called “iSeries” Projects. If you’re new to the tool and haven’t mastered opening a perspective, there are many ways to do it.

  …

  Read more

• Admin Alert: Renewing A Default *System Certificate

  June 5, 2013 Joe Hertvik

  In an earlier column, I described how to solve problems when loading digital certificates into your IBM i Digital Certificate Manager (DCM). This week, I’ll review another DCM problem where the default certificate in the system certificate store (*SYSTEM) expires, and the system starts refusing connections from clients that use digital certificates. This week, let’s examine what happens when a *SYSTEM default certificate expires and how to renew that certificate in DCM. Getting The Terminology Correct To untangle what’s happening here, let’s first look at some terminology regarding your partition’s DCM. A system certificate store, designated by *SYSTEM in DCM,

  …

  Read more

• Conditional SQL I/O

  June 5, 2013 Ted Holt

  If an RPG programmer has a best friend, it may very well be the CHAIN opcode, which performs a random read on a keyed database file. It’s common programming practice in information-processing shops to read one file sequentially and to chain to read a host of others randomly. SQL handles this sort of thing differently. With SQL, joining is the proper way to retrieve data from two or more tables and/or views. The difference is even more pronounced when some of the random processing may or may not take place. Suppose you’re responsible for a database that contains customer orders.

  …

  Read more

• When Is A Source Member Not A Source Member?

  June 5, 2013 Susan Gantner

  I do my coding using Rational Developer for Power Systems (a.k.a. RDP). Most of the time, I open the source code in the editor in RDP much like SEU users would, in the sense that I open my source directly from a member in a source file in a library on IBM i. When I save from the RDP editor, the source is saved back to that same member. Below is a picture of what my screen looks like when I’m working with RDP as described above. Note the highlighted library, source files, and members in the “Remote Systems” view

  …

  Read more

• Adding A Job Queue To A Batch Subsystem

  May 15, 2013 Hey, Joe

  I want to add another batch job queue to my QBATCH subsystem for submitting reporting jobs that take a long time to process. I want to put them in their own job queue so they can just chug away in QBATCH without interfering with my other batch work. How do I add another job queue that I can submit these jobs to? –Bob Adding batch job queues to QBATCH is easy. All you have to do is perform the following steps and you’ll be able to create another QBATCH job queue in no time. Check to see how many jobs

  …

  Read more

Previous Articles Next Articles