TFH Volume: 27 Issue: 25 Archives

IBM Gives AIX Some Of The Integration Spice Of IBM i

April 17, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Sometimes I just have to laugh. One of the best things about the IBM i platform, and the thing that truly separates it aside from its sophisticated single memory storage architecture is the fact that it is an integrated system that is easy to deploy and even easier to administer. So many functions of the system are automated that companies that don’t want to hire database experts can do a very good job of coding applications and running their business with far fewer techies than other platforms require.

The same has never been said of AIX, and it certainly cannot …
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Secrets Of IBM i Magic Act Revealed

April 17, 2017 Dan Burger

Can IBM i shops find a way to replace their RPG-oriented staffs with magicians? The answer, in many cases, is that they already have. The RPG staff members are the magicians. They’ve abra-ka-dabra-ed their way to doing more with less for something like 30 years. The clever companies employing these magicians have parlayed this IT staff magic into new technology investments that perpetuate the more for less phenomenon.

One of those technologies is the modern managed services provider, which causes system management to disappear and gives the IT magicians something new to work on . . . like database modernization, …
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Guru: SQL Facts Of UNION And ORDER BY, Take Two

April 17, 2017 Ted Holt

Hey, Ted:

In last week’s tip, you mentioned that expressions are not allowed in the ORDER BY clause of a union. You can use the union as a subquery to allow the use of an expression for the ordering. An extra layer, but it gives you the result you are looking for.

–S. Sims

Sims is correct. I was so focused on the fact that the ORDER BY of a union does not allow expressions that I completely forgot about a workaround. His (her?) technique is probably the most common way to deal with this limitation. I’ve seen numerous examples …
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S4i Systems Embraces Open Source Project

April 17, 2017 Dan Burger

Open source development on IBM i bodes well for the platform and all those who look to the future as well as recognizing the value of the past. RPG development isn’t threatened by open source options. It’s stimulated by open source. The modernization of RPG, C, or COBOL investments gets a boost from open source. There are people writing applications on IBM i that would not be within shouting distance of the platform if open source language options were not available.

When Web services, mobile applications and other Web technologies become more closely aligned with i, the community benefits. The …
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Taking A New Look At Used IBM i Gear

April 17, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan

In some ways, we miss the days when OS/400 and IBM i gear was more expensive than it is today. Thanks to considerably larger customer and reseller bases and because hardware was so expensive and, costing something on the order of a few mansions per month to rent or lease or finance, there was a vibrant market in second-hand AS/400 and iSeries equipment.

But as the base got smaller and systems got cheaper thanks to Moore’s Law improvements on all hardware components except the tin wrapping around them, the market for used equipment became thinner and less orderly. And, perhaps …
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IBM Gives AIX Some Of The Integration Spice Of IBM i

Secrets Of IBM i Magic Act Revealed

Guru: SQL Facts Of UNION And ORDER BY, Take Two

S4i Systems Embraces Open Source Project

Taking A New Look At Used IBM i Gear

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