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Talking Shop With Power Systems Chief Stephen Leonard
May 10, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Whether or not you were aware of it, the Cognitive Systems division of IBM – what we still colloquially call Power Systems here at IT Jungle and what everyone else still calls it for the most part – has had a new general manager for quite some time and we had not yet had a chance to talk to the new chief. But recently we did hop on the Zoom with Stephen Leonard to get some insight about the Power Systems business and how it fits into the new and evolving IBM and the rapidly changing IT sector.
Leonard dates …
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IBM Tweaks Power Systems Hardware Here And There
April 26, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan
First of all, our apologies for taking so long to get to the hardware roundup from the April 13 Power Systems announcements, which brought us new Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.3 and IBM i 7.4. There were a few changes to the hardware lineup as well, and let’s go through them now.
As you can see from announcement letter 121-013, IBM has done a refresh on the 2.5-inch flash drives used in the Power9-based server line. According to Douglas Gibbs, offering manager for peripherals at the Cognitive Systems division that is responsible for the Power Systems lineup, this …
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When Cloud Meets DevOps on IBM i
April 7, 2021 Alex Woodie
We’re witnessing multiple macro trends play out in the IT industry, with the rise of cloud computing and managed services being one of the most compelling storylines in 2021. How software is developed is changing too, with DevOps tools and agile methodologies rapidly becoming the norm. When these two trends converge in our little neck of the woods, it can leave IBM i customers wondering where to go. With their recently formed partnership, ARCAD Software and Connectria have mapped out one path.
A decade ago, companies were still unsure of the cloud. They would dabble with adding development, test, and …
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JD Edwards Roadmap Reveals Decisions To Be Made
April 7, 2021 Alex Woodie
SAP isn’t the only ERP vendor that wants to move on-prem customers to its cloud-based option. Its top rival, Oracle, appears to have similar aims. The company has made public commitments to continue supporting its JD Edwards customers for years to come, so there is no immediate reason to panic. But considering the investments that customers make in their ERP environments, JD Edwards customers should pay close attention to what comes next.
When Oracle bought PeopleSoft in 2004 for $10.3 billion, it also acquired the JD Edwards portfolio. That includes the World line, which only runs on IBM i, and …
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Oracle Versus Rimini Slogs On In Second Decade
April 5, 2021 Alex Woodie
The lawsuit that keeps on giving, Oracle Versus Rimini Street, is generating news again, as the two companies continue to duke it out in federal court. But the battle spilled out into the streets with a pair of dueling press releases issued April 1 that had us wondering if it was all a joke. It wasn’t.
The last time we visited Oracle Versus Rimini Street was two years ago, when the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in favor of Rimini on the issue of costs. After a jury decided that Rimini was violating Oracle’s copyright in its third-party software support business …
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IBM i Wish List: Add A Virtual IBM i Platform Like System z Wazi
March 22, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Serendipity is a funny thing; part serene and part dippy, I suppose. I was poking around for something interesting that might be relevant to the IBM i platform, and ran across announcement letter 221-122, which was for something called IBM Wazi Developer for Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces. I had recently heard of CodeReady Workspaces because of the recent Power Systems announcements, but I had no idea what Wazi was.
What I now know is that I want this in an IBM i flavor.
There is no such thing as a portable and cheap and ubiquitous System z mainframe environment, …
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Guru: Getting Yum And Bash Up And Running
March 15, 2021 Rob McNelly
In the March 1 edition of The Four Hundred, I noted that an emphasis on things like system/application modernization and open source solutions gives IBM i newcomers a degree of comfort with the platform. I also made the point that no matter how long you or I have been at this, there are always people, young or not so young, who are new to the platform and come to this site seeking introductory information about various tasks and capabilities.
With this in mind, I want to delve further into open source for those who are new to it. As …
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Guru: When An Outer Join Is An Inner Join
February 15, 2021 Ted Holt
When is a boy not a boy? When he’s abed! When is a door not a door? When it’s ajar! When is an outer join not an outer join? (Sorry, no dad joke here. Three dad jokes in one paragraph would have been too many, don’t you agree?) Let me answer that last question.
In my work I often see outer joins that are not really outer joins, but inner joins. Oh, based on what I’ve heard from IBM, the query engine may treat them as outer joins, but the result set is the same as that produced by an …
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Four Hundred Monitor, February 3
February 3, 2021 Jenny Thomas
Yesterday, everyone’s favorite soothsayer Punxsutawney Phil predicted winter will hang on for six more weeks, which can be good or bad news depending on your weather preferences. What a difference a year has made as we close in on the one-year mark of when Covid-19 changed the world. Even Phil has had to adjust. The yearly Groundhog Day ritual, which dates back to 1887, was held virtually in 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, we’ve all learned to adjust evidenced by our Calendar below, which is filled with webinars and virtual events. COMMON also has a new hybrid conference …
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Sometimes Folks Only Learn The Hard Way About Keeping Software Current
February 1, 2021 Rob McNelly
School’s been out for me for a very long time, but I still enjoy learning. I gain a sense of satisfaction whenever I learn something new. Specific to technology, exposure to new concepts helps me understand how things work together. I cannot count the number of times where I watched over someone’s shoulder, or watched someone on a shared screen, to learn about a new tool or technique, or a different way to set up my desktop or environment.
Watching and listening to people is my preferred way to learn, but other forms of education – reading IBM Redbooks and …
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