IBMi Do I need to pay for Java? Over the last few months, you may have noticed some rather confusing messages about the need to pay for Java. They imply that you need to pay to use Java if you are a business, and in some cases this will be true but in most cases you will NOT
IBMi Open Source Package Management To follow on from my PowerWire Open Source on IBM i theme, this time I would like to run through Open Source Package Management with you all. So, what is Package Management? Firstly, let us step back and run through how we typically manage our software on the IBM i.
IBMi Removing the storage bottleneck This article is sponsored by Northdoor. The theoretical peak performance of IBM® Power Systems™ servers continues to rise rapidly with each new generation of hardware, but any system is only as good as its weakest element. In many organisations, end-to-end performance is throttled by bottlenecks in data storage and retrieval.
IBMi Node is Weird! Firstly, thanks to all that attended my Node.js on IBM i workshop at the International i Power conference in June. Once again, a great event, meeting up with old friends and colleagues. Well done to the organisers. In this article I intended giving you a quick introduction to Node.
IBMi What JDK 9 means for your Terminal Emulator What is JDK 9 and why does it matter? JDK stands for the Java Development Kit and the 9 refers to the version of it which was released on September 21st 2017. Oracle have stated that as JDK 9’s September release they will be removing support for the Java
IBMi Goldilocks and the RPG Developers My partners, Jon Paris and Paul Tuohy, and I participated in i-UG’s i-Power event in 2016 and in similar events with i-UG in past years. It’s always great to meet and work with fellow IBM i developers in the UK. Traditional i-UG events offer a series of 45-minute
IBMi Andy Youens' workshop at International i-Power Andy Youens is back at International i-Power to deliver another interesting, entertaining and informative workshop. Write Your First Node.js Program During this workshop, apart from getting you to write your first node.js program, we will be showing the following examples & demos where you can try your hand.
IBMi A Netserver SMB Alternative? Has your organisation been hit with the file sharing SMBv1 being disabled? Can you no longer share files on our servers IFS, as Microsoft is now blocking this protocol? Server Message Block (SMB) is the method used on the IBM i to share files and printers and commonly known on
Featured Don’t have a Meltdown over Spectre You would have to be living under a rock not to have heard about the latest class of security vulnerabilities that have been found. These are known by the catchy names of Meltdown and Spectre. Now those of you who know me (and my love of patching servers) will be
Featured RDi 9.6 – Push to Client Feature To continue with my current stream of Rational Developer for i articles, in this issue, I will show how to use a feature that makes administration easier, I’m all for that! How many times over the years have we opened a PMR with IBM on RDi, or all the
AIX Say hello to the new POWER9 and go buy a POWER8 IBM has just announced the all new POWER9 based AC922 model and it looks great! I’ll talk about that a little more later but for now just know that it’s faster than ever but these first models are focusing on AI (Artificial Intelligence) and will be running Linux
Featured RDi 9.6 – Worth a Look? Firstly, thank-you to all that attended my RDi session at the last UK iUG meeting. I hope you enjoyed it. At that presentation, I notified all that IBM were due to release Version 9.6 of RDi on the 16/11/2017, which replaces RDi version 9.5.1.2
IBMi Time to say bye bye to 7.1 “Alas, poor 7.1! I knew him, Horatio: an O/S of infinite Roch-est, of most excellent Resili-ancy: he hath borne me on his back-up a thousand times”. OK so I confess that is quite possibly the most painful Shakespeare kludge I have ever read too. If you can do
IBMi Register your place at i-UG's final meeting of 2017 i-UG is delighted to announce the welcome return of Doug Mack, DB2 for i Analytics Consultant in IBM’s Power Systems Lab Services organisation, based in the USA. He currently leads the Analytics team for the DB2 for i Lab Services team delivering Query/400 modernisation, DB2 Web Query, Data
Featured DB2 Field Procedures - Testing In my last article, I wrote how we can encrypt sensitive data in our DB2 database. To recap; IBM has given us the ability to take a field, or column, and let us apply security, or encryption, to that field/column. It is up to your FieldProc program to perform
IBMi Wanna Use SMB v2 If you need NetServer you need the last from IBM i. Netserver (the IBM i Service that allows you to map a network drive) and QNTC (the ability to read and write to a Windows Share directly from your IBM i) have been around so long now it’s hard
IBMi DB2 Field Procedures A few years ago, DB2 for i introduced a new feature that can be used to apply security/encryption to our columns within our database. This enhancement is called Field Procedures, or FieldProcs throughout this article. DB2 FieldProcs have been around since 7.1 of IBM i in April 2010.
Featured Aggregated Ethernet – Faster & More Resilient Networking Have any of you ever lost connectivity to your server because someone accidentally disconnected the wrong cable? It is so annoying as in many cases even if the cable was plugged back in you still had to answer a message on QSYSOPR to tell your system that it’s OK
IBMi WRKJOBSCDE – Working with Job Scheduled Entries OK, OK, OK, I know this command has been around since the beginning of time but there are a couple of things I find that most people I work with do not realise about this command that can be really useful. So, just bear with me here and check that
IBMi DB2 Row and Column Access Control Introduction DB2 for i has a fantastic feature that is fairly new, Row and Column Access Control, or RCAC, for ease. This feature has been around since 7.2 of IBM i in April 2014, but doesn’t get a lot of exposure, so hence my interpretation of how it
IBMi Great Tech Events … but how do you convince the boss to send you? There are many great technical events and conferences throughout the year. Now, maybe you’re sold on the idea of going to one of these conferences. But how do you get the boss to agree it would be a good idea for you to attend? After all, there’s the
IBMi Keep an eye on your cache batteries with QSMBTTCC Those of you who have suffered from an unexpected cache battery failure (SRC nnnn8008) will know how much pain it can cause. Whilst there is never any danger to your data, in many cases the performance of your server can be reduced by a factor of ten! So this month
IBMi IBM i SNTP – Automatic Time Adjustment Last month I wrote about how you could get your IBM i to automatically adjust its clock for Daylight Saving Time adjustments, this month we take it one step further and see how its trivial to get your clock to keep itself in sync constantly with other services on your
IBMi Corporate Inertia Resistance. Inertia. It’s hard to understand why people don’t do what they know they should be doing. This inertia isn’t just for people who really need to go to the gym or stop losing hours on Facebook. There’s also such a thing as Corporate Inertia. When
IBMi Featured RPG 2017 Updates Introduction During the latest round of IBM i Technology Refreshes, TR2 for version 7.3 and TR6 for version 7.2 enhancement, IBM also introduced three enrichments for RPG. These changes will be released as individual PTFs, around the April 2017 timespan, as with the Technology Refreshes. Let us take
