Planet i

Dale Flavin, one of our group members, is looking for someone to help him with a development project on the IBM i.  He’s posted the information on the LinkedIn group and I thought I’d pass it along to you.  See the link below for additional information.

iSeries Programmer Analyst Contractor/Consultant Wanted

Read the original at GSLMUG.

I’ve started a consulting firm dedicated to helping companies attain superior results with PHP, Zend Framework, IBM i, and related technologies such as Zend Server, DB2, and the new PHP toolkit.

We will provide guidance and best practices, training, mentoring, troubleshooting, performance help, team building, speaking, writing, and advocacy.

My first speaking engagement with my new company will be the OCEAN conference on July 20, 2012, in Southern California. Hope to see some of you there.

Thanks for your support. I will be available starting July 2 after a short vacation. I look forward to working with you.

Alan

Read the original at Alan Seiden's PHP and IBM i Resources.

It has come to my attention that Kent Milligan has a new article on conditional masking now available via the DB2 field procedure support found in 7.1.

The article can be found here.

If you are wondering what field procedures are all about, read Kent's first article here.

Thanks Kent!

Read the original at DB2 for i.

Zend and MySQL…

On my travels through Europe as I visit many IBM i customers I am presented with wonderful challenges and opportunities.  One challenge had me stunned but I must say should not be terribly surprising.  It was about the DB2 Storage Engine for MySQL and support.

First, what is Mike talking about?  Well, MySQL is the world’s most popular open source RDBMS and it runs on nearly every platform including IBM i with the recent edition of the new Zend DBi product.  MySQL is architected in a special way in which the UI is separated from the data storage layer.  This allows MySQL to change the storage layer without having to rewrite the application.  Does this sound familiar?

The idea is that you would use an application that would store data in MySQL, possibly SugarCRM, Drupal, MediaWiki or something like along those lines. Even a home grown application talking to MySQL would work.  Then, you tell MySQL to store the data for those tables in DB2 rather than MySQL via the ENGINE SQL directive.  This lets your applications talk to MySQL while the actual data is being stored in DB2 on IBM i.  It is important to understand that this data is NOT replicated.  The actual data store is DB2.  Existing tables can be converted to DB2 by using the alter table statement as well.  IBM has a couple of great redbooks on the subject that are well worth checking out.

So someone asked if the DB2 Storage Engine is supported.  According to IBM, the answer is yes so long as they are current on their IBM Software Maintenance Agreement (SWMA).  If a customer is current, then that customer who deploys this solution and has who needs to log a support ticket a problem can, under SWMA, open a PMR regarding the DB2 Storage engine and IBM will work toward a resolution.  This is a good thing and proves that IBM will stand by their solutions. 

I developed a new presentation called Introduction to MySQL for IBM i.  This session has been getting some pretty good reviews and I have gotten some awesome feedback for updates.  As a result we are scheduling a webcast on the MySQL and IBM i in August!  There is no charge for the live and recorded  webcasts at the Zend website so like voting in Chicago – tune in early and often!

Read the original at Mike's IBM i PHP blog and more....

IBM i is an ideal platform for providing cloud solutions.  View this video from IBM about this.

Read the original at GSLMUG.

I find I can preach all day about how powerful Lotus Notes is for calendar, but some users just won't use it.  They have a mental checklist or they *cough* write things down. 

That is, until I show them how to integrate their Facebook birthdays and a 7 day weather forecast in there.

Some users just need to be shown the fun stuff.  Then they have their reason to use the calendar. 

I encourage all my users to meld their personal schedule with their work schedule.  Print a weekly calendar to a document and forward it to your spouse as an FYI, especially if you do a lot of travelling.  Put the grocery list in the description in a reminder.  Put the dog grooming, dentist, doctor, auto shop and haircut appointments in there.  Once they get familiar with the calendar for personal use, they start using it to get the real value: an informed and organized work environment.

A big kudos to Mat Newman for the Facebook tip and to Darren Adams for the weather tip.

Read the original at Steve Pitcher.

I have a new bi-weekly column at MC Press Online called In The Wheelhouse.  I'll be covering industry events and analysis.  Most of the content have an IBM flavor, but there's plenty of other things I'll be talking about.

In this edition I'll talk about IBM PureSystems, IBM Collaboration Solutions (Lotus) education, Betamax vs. IBM i, and the striking similarities between the RPG programming language and Freddy Krueger.

Read the original at Steve Pitcher.

We have been working with a client who wanted to be able to install a new website on their IBMi. The new website was developed on another OS using cake PHP by a development company that had no idea about how to set up a web server on an IBMi so we were asked to [...]

Read the original at Simply 'i'.

Timothy Morgan Prickett's June 11, 2012 article titled "Why IBM Is Trying To Surf The Linux Wave With Power Systems" is an excellent article filled with outstanding statistics for both revenue and market share covering the rise of Linux in a declining server market.

While this sounds like something new for IBM it is really old news with some great new results for IBM's Linux business. 

For IBM i users and more importantly managers and executives of shops using IBM i you need to take note of Tim's article and other facts.  Here is a quote from the Wikipedia: from a page titled simply "IBM"

Today there are less than 100 people within IBM working on IBM i.  I would guess the number is even lower than that.  Note the new Power Linux machines that are designed to compete with Intel machines and give IBM a shot an market segment that they have never been successful in (the under $10,000 server business). 

IBM invested over $1 Billion in Linux back in 1998 and helped convert Linux from "an interesting idea" to a highly competitive market leader.  IBM realized that proprietary operating systems like IBM i, zOS, and AIX would not survive.  In 1998 Microsoft was dominating the server environment with millions of installed Windows based machines.  It was clear that IBM could not dominate the world with Operating systems any longer.  Every year revenues from its mainframes and midsize machines was shrinking due to their dependency on proprietary operating systems (zOS, IBM i, and AIX).  At the same time, IBM's xSeries servers running Windows was growing.

The investment in Linux was designed to stop or limit Microsoft's growth and dominance of the operating system market place.  This strategy has been extremely successful.  While Microsoft still has millions of installed servers in its customer base compared to thousand in the IBM i, and zSeries market base, IBM now has a universal shot of selling all of its hardware to the Linux community.

Keep in mind that while the new Power Linux machine targets low end customers, Linux runs on all IBM platforms from its largest mainframes to its smallest Intel based servers and across the entire Power Systems line of machines. 

IBM does employ about 300 people as indicated above dedicated to developing the Linux Kernel but this is a fraction of the cost of the several thousand developers that used to work on IBM i (over 5,000 back in 2006), zOS (unknown but over 1000), and AIX (again unknown but over 1000 at its peak).  Add that up, 300 people versus 7,000 to 10,000 people?  Hmmm... Sounds like a bargain to me, especially if 2/3 or more of those 300 Linux developers are in India or China! 

If you think there is a future for IBM i read Tim's article.  Buy and read the IDC study upon which this article is based! 

Look at the economics behind the IBM Plex initiative.  This is a way to drag IBM i customers kicking and screaming into new technology and sell them SAN's and other integration based technologies and mainstream the environment with Microsoft and Linux technology along side IBM i applications.  Plex is a great way to begin to move away from IBM i without pulling the plug right away.

My business is to help companies like yours develop a strategic IT plan that meets your business requirements, assesses the risk of existing systems.  Call me to discuss how we can help you develop a business oriented IT plan for the 21st Century. 

Bob Cancilla
Telephone:  (916)690-8276
email:  bobc@rjcancilla.com

Read the original at Bob Cancilla on IBM i.

During the first half of this year, IBM has released two videos that help explain how IBM i fits in the Smarter Computing message within...

Read the original at You and i.