• IBM Shuffles IBM i CDC Function and Data Replication Tool

  March 9, 2016 Alex Woodie

  If your IBM i shop uses change data capture (CDC) software from IBM, you’ll be interested to know that last week IBM announced that it’s no longer selling the InfoSphere Change Data Capture for DB2 on IBM i as a separate product. It made the change because that same IBM i-based CDC engine can now be found in the latest release of its InfoSphere Data Replication product. InfoSphere Change Data Capture traces its lineage directly to DataMirror’s Transformation Server, the journal-based data replication tool at the center of IBM’s acquisition of DataMirror in July 2007. Nearly a year

  …

  Read more

• A Possibly Coherent Future Power Hybrid System

  March 7, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  From the looks of things, we can expect to see new Power Systems machines based on the Power8+ processors from IBM in the next several months. With new iron on the way and the server, storage, and networking markets all undergoing tumultuous change, now is a good time to examine the place of the IBM i platform in the modern datacenter and how it might be better integrated with the other systems that coexist with it. Having to say such a sentence was never part of the original System/38 and AS/400 plan, of course. And perhaps the midrange IT world

  …

  Read more

• A Change Of Heart: IBM i Shops More Willing To Share

  March 7, 2016 Dan Burger

  On the road from the AS/400 to IBM i, there have been many changes. One of the biggest has been the evolution from being a fortress that locked out all “outsiders” to allowing the system to interact with other systems. I don’t doubt there are some one-dimensional IBM i shops, but sharing data, once punishable by death, now occurs without beads of sweat and loss of sleep . . . most of the time. The IBM i platform has a strong record of being directly accessible to other platforms, especially within the Windows realm, Mike Sansoterra points out. Sansoterra is

  …

  Read more

• The Most Precious IBM i Resource . . . Women

  March 7, 2016 Dan Burger

  Man’s work and women’s work, can you describe the difference? Think about all the reasons there are tasks that fit into one or the other category. Then think about the IBM midrange community and why the ratio of men to women must be 10 to one, or even greater. Unbalanced? Obviously. Discrimination? I’m not here to throw that bomb. Successful women in this business? Yes, there are many. I’m going to mention just a few highly successful women from the IBM i community right off the top of my head: Alison Butterill, IBM i Product Offering Manager; Susan Gantner, highly

  …

  Read more

• IBM Patches Pair Of TLS Flaws In IBM i

  March 7, 2016 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops are encouraged to be vigilant following a pair of security vulnerabilities that have emerged in the encryption protocols used by the platform. This includes the SLOTH vulnerability in the IBM i JVM that IBM patched February 15. But a bigger threat looms in the form of DROWN, a potentially significant vulnerability in the SSL/TLS stack that IBM patched on March 1. IBM issued a series of patches to address the SLOTH vulnerability in the IBM i JVMs. According to IBM’s Security Bulletin for SLOTH, a problem with the IBM i JVM’s implementation of the TLS 1.2

  …

  Read more

• IBM Kills Off Flex p260+ Node, Offers PureSystems Trade-In

  March 7, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If you are one of the relatively few customers who bought Flex Systems modular servers from IBM based on its Power7 and Power7+ processors, you had better get the lead out if you need to add some iron to your systems. In announcement letter 916-028, IBM said that it was going to be withdrawing the Flex System p260+ server nodes, which are based on Power7+ processors, from its catalog starting on November 18. A slew of networking features, including switches and adapters, are having the plug pulled on them on March 8, and so are memory and storage features

  …

  Read more

• Payday For The People Who Make The IBM i Go

  February 29, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In our ongoing series on the people who run and program the IBM i platform and the industries where they work, we are now going to finally get to the meat of the issue: Payday for programming. Moola for managing. Greenbacks for greenscreens and for converting greenscreens to modern web and mobile interfaces. The reason why you get out of bed in the morning and go to your respective and respected work. The data is pretty thin about salaries out there in IBM Midrange Land, but luckily for us Bob Langieri, president of Excel Technical Services and a long-time recruiter

  …

  Read more

• HelpSystems Spies Overseas Expansion With Tango/04 Buy

  February 29, 2016 Alex Woodie

  HelpSystems CEO Chris Heim told IT Jungle that his company’s acquisition of rival IBM i software maker Tango/04 Computing Group last week marks the beginning of an aggressive push into the overseas market. The deal for Tango/04 will jumpstart HelpSystems’ presence in Southern Europe and Latin America, but there’s a lot more room for expansion, he says. While North America is far and away the biggest market for IBM i goods and services, the platform has always enjoyed strong overseas sales and has an international presence that is arguably bigger than it is in the United States. IBM makes about

  …

  Read more

• WebSmart For Node.js Beta Project Under Way

  February 29, 2016 Dan Burger

  When IBM i got support for Node.js eight months ago, it lit a fire. BCD Software threw a log on that fire last week by announcing its Web development environment WebSmart supports Node.js as well. It’s a beta project now, but if things go according to plan WebSmart for Node.js will be generally available in three months. Will the open source Node.js be as popular in the IBM midrange community as open source PHP? We will have to see how that plays out. Node.js applications can be rendered on desktops, tablets and smartphones when BCD releases WebSmart Node.js. IBM’s support

  …

  Read more

• Power Systems Fuel IBM Channel Growth, Says Avnet Exec

  February 29, 2016 Dan Burger

  In the past year, the IBM channel has experienced 25 percent growth on Power, according to an executive at Avnet, one of IBM’s dominant sales channel partners. Workloads attributed to business analytics, high performance business computing, and management of big data–all the areas that IBM predicted would make a difference–are driving the gains. Managed service providers are getting some of the credit, but on-premise upgrades for customers are in on this, too. Richard Martinez’s business card identifies him as supplier business executive for IBM Power at Avnet, which along with Arrow Electronics, is one of IBM’s biggest business

  …

  Read more

Previous Articles Next Articles