• Get Your Git On, IBM i

  August 8, 2016 Alex Woodie

  Git has officially come to IBM i. Last week, IBM released a program temporary fix (PTF) that includes binaries for an IBM i version of the popular open source change management tool that was announced as part of IBM i 7.3 earlier this year. Along with Git, IBM also released a PTF for Orion, a new Web-based IDE that works with Git and can be used to code free-form RPG from a tablet. There’s been a lot of talk about Git in the IBM i community since it was first revealed to be coming to the platform with the launch

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• Surviving A Change Management Migration

  July 25, 2016 Dan Burger

  Software migrations are the root canals of enterprise IT. Rarely do you find anyone looking forward to them. That’s not to say they are not being considered. High maintenance fees and minimal enhancements have encouraged software replacement strategies to become more widespread than they were just a few years ago. In the IBM midrange community, where application and database modernization is at the top of the priority list, migration obstacles–risk and complexity–are being overcome. A recent example that has come to the attention of IT Jungle is the replacement of change management software at Vermont Information Processing(VIP), an IBM

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• Townsend Ponders Future Of DB2 Modernization Tech

  July 25, 2016 Alex Woodie

  What will Townsend Security do with the potentially groundbreaking technology it created to solve a thorny encryption issue in DB2 for i? While the Olympia, Washington-based company is not interested in getting into the database modernization business, it is open to the possibility of licensing its innovative technology–which essentially uses Open Access for RPG to replace record-level I/O calls in legacy RPG apps with the SQL Query Engine–to people who are. Townsend finds itself in this peculiar situation through no fault of its own. The company ran into a tough technical problem that stymied some of its largest customers in

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• At The End Of The Power8 Long Tail

  July 25, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Largely for economic reasons relating to IBM‘s high costs in chip manufacturing and relatively low chip volumes, the Power Systems platform left the familiar cadence of Moore’s Law progress quite a while ago. IBM stretched it out to three years or more between processor cycles, and here we are in the middle of 2016 and we are still probably at least a year away from the Power9 launch. At the tail end of any product cycle revenues are bound to dip, and this is precisely what is happening to segments of the Power Systems line. The bad news for

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• Mad Dog 21/21: Brexit, Pursued By A Bear Market

  July 25, 2016 Hesh Wiener

  In The Winter’s Tale, Antigonus is chased offstage to his death. Shakespeare’s stage direction is, “Exit, pursued by a bear.” This instruction is part of a quirky drama that begins in tragedy but ends with joy and redemption, a story chock full of surprises. Its boggled principals apparently feel the way Britons, Europeans, and indeed the rest of us do in the wake of Brexit, the indication that Britain’s voters want to leave the European Union. Brexit rattled the world’s financial markets. Most investors had not expected the turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving. A fortnight after Brexit, the

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• Systems Monitoring Made Easier, Better, GUI-er

  July 25, 2016 Dan Burger

  With the introduction of its newest systems management software, HelpSystems is showing off what it can do by merging its traditional Robot line with an acquired product from the CCSS family of tools. Raise the curtain, please, on Robot Monitor 14, a feature enhanced version of what was formerly known as CCSS QSystem Monitor now integrated with the Robot IT operations management and infrastructure monitoring software stack. The new Robot Monitor specializes in keeping watch over system performance from a single, central dashboard. It provides real-time data on: job status and performance system configuration and performance IOP utilization resources communication

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• Blue Stack Deadline Looms for JD Edwards Shops

  July 20, 2016 Alex Woodie

  In just over two months, JD Edwards shops that run EnterpriseOne ERP software on the “Blue Stack” of IBM middleware, including DB2 and WebSphere products, will no longer be able to get technical support for those products from Oracle. Customers have had nearly six years to prepare for the September 30 deadline, but there are those who have yet to make a decision. Luckily, Blue Stack stragglers still have options available to them. We told you about Oracle’s decision to kill Blue Stack support just after it announced it way back at the end of 2010. It’s been

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• IBM Patches 13 Security Vulnerabilities in IBM i JDK

  July 20, 2016 Alex Woodie

  Time to shore up your Java. Last month IBM patched 13 security vulnerabilities that impact the Java Development Kit (JDK) for IBM i versions 6.1, 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3. The flaws range from being small nuisances to severe, particularly the four flaws that earned perfect 10s on the CVSS impact scale. Of the 13 vulnerabilities that IBM identified in a June 27 security bulletin, all but three of them were first disclosed to the world by Oracle, which directs development of the semi open-source language and patched the problems. Big Red disclosed the existence of most of the

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• Raz-Lee Claims Technological Edge with IBM i Encryption

  July 20, 2016 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that are on the hunt for an encryption solution to protect their sensitive data may want to check out the latest from Raz-Lee Security. The New York-based software company recently announced that it’s leveraging IBM‘s FieldProc technology to deliver field-level encryption that’s unlike anything else on the IBM i market. The company also announced a new PGP encryption solution. Raz-Lee wasn’t the first IBM i security software provider to first to use the FieldProc, which can greatly simplify the process of adding encryption and decryption capabilities to a DB2 for i database, up to the

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• DRV Check Printing Software A Laser Sharp Cost Cutter

  July 20, 2016 Dan Burger

  Life is full of surprises. For example, why would a company rely on pre-printed, continuous-form checks printed on impact printers? It would seem that simply becoming aware of impact printer prices would prod a decision maker into searching for an alternative. Every company is supposed to have a cost-cutting watch dog. And that dog is also supposed to be watching for ramifications to low cost–things like weakened security and performance degradation. If you’re that dog, here’s your alternative to expensive and proprietary MICR-enhanced impact printers. It’s called SecureChex and it comes from DRV Technologies, an IBM i software vendor

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