GSLMUG › David Shoaf – Web GUI tool from BCD
July 31st, 2012
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David gave a good presentation of BCD’s Web GUI tool for the IBM i. See the video below to watch.
Read the original at GSLMUG.
Archive
Archive for July, 2012
DB2 for i › Opportunities to Get Smart and Eat Grits!
July 30th, 2012
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A quick note to remind you of a couple opportunities to get educated this Fall by attending one of our DB2 for i SQL Performance Monitoring, Analysis and Tuning workshops. This is absolutely the best way to get enlightened on the critical success factors with regards to SQL performance, including the science and art behind DB2 for i SQL query optimization. The workshop features both lecture and hands on lab exercises taught by the IBM DB2 for i Center of Excellence (i.e. the best in the business).
London, England - October 2-4
Atlanta, Georgia - November 6-9
And for those of you who might not be familiar with them, grits are a staple food of the southern US, specifically Dixie - and to be sure, y'all can order some while attending class in Atlanta.
London, England - October 2-4
Atlanta, Georgia - November 6-9
And for those of you who might not be familiar with them, grits are a staple food of the southern US, specifically Dixie - and to be sure, y'all can order some while attending class in Atlanta.
Read the original at DB2 for i.
Categories: Blogs
I THINK THEREFORE IBM-i blogs › yet another big list of as400 technical, practical questions and just plain brain teasers
July 26th, 2012
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So, last night I was nosing around in the dim dark corners of an old network share on my homeserver. I stumbled across an old TXT document from the late 90's, I think. It was sitting in a text file called "AS400 brainteasers" -it's obviously old (look at the as400 model numbers question).
It was fun to scan through these questions and answers. I got a about 98% right... there were a couple where I dropped the ball and I blame that on the vintage questions and my fading senility...
Test yourself and see if you can be classed as an AS400 specialist:
AS400 Questions
What is the Configuration of the AS/400 system on which you have worked?
System E35(Model 9406), 24MB main memory, 3.2GB of HD and supports 49 terminals (7 Port).
How many terminals can be connected to a port?
7 terminals
What do the terms CUA and SAA stand for?
Common User Access Systems Application Architecture
What are the communication protocols supported by AS/400?
Read the original at I THINK THEREFORE IBM-i blogs.
Categories: Blogs
I THINK THEREFORE IBM-i blogs › yet another big list of as400 technical, practical questions and just plain brain teasers
July 26th, 2012
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So, last night I was nosing around in the dim dark corners of an old network share on my homeserver. I stumbled across an old TXT document from the late 90's, I think. It was sitting in a text file called "AS400 brainteasers" -it's obviously old (look at the as400 model numbers question).
It was fun to scan through these questions and answers. I got a about 98% right... there were a couple where I dropped the ball and I blame that on the vintage questions and my fading senility...
Test yourself and see if you can be classed as an AS400 specialist:
AS400 Questions
What is the Configuration of the AS/400 system on which you have worked?
System E35(Model 9406), 24MB main memory, 3.2GB of HD and supports 49 terminals (7 Port).
How many terminals can be connected to a port?
7 terminals
What do the terms CUA and SAA stand for?
Common User Access Systems Application Architecture
What are the communication protocols supported by AS/400?
Read the original at I THINK THEREFORE IBM-i blogs.
Categories: Blogs
PowerUp › 5 Ways to Maximize Density and Service Levels in PowerVM and AIX
July 25th, 2012
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This PowerUp blog entry was written by Andrew Hillier, CTO and co-founder of CiRBA. In that role, he acts as the visionary for product strategy...
Read the original at PowerUp.
iDevelop › Good News for Mac (and Linux) Users
July 24th, 2012
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As we noted in last week's blog, we're theoretically on vacation this week in beautiful Carlsbad, Calif. Apparently whoever controls the weather read that blog...
Read the original at iDevelop.
i Can › IBM i Security Never Sleeps
July 24th, 2012
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This week's blog was written by Scott Forstie, senior software engineer at IBM. He is the DB2 for i Business Architect, SQL development leader and...
Read the original at i Can.
DB2 for i › RPG or SQL?
July 23rd, 2012
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In a word… YES!
Seek not to know the answers, but to understand the questions
I am often asked questions that involve some form of “SQL vs. RPG”.
I have come to believe that the real question is: should I use SQL to access and process my data, or should I use RPG record level access combined with my own program logic.
Of course, the answer is: it depends.
SQL is the language of database. It has nothing to do with formatting or presentation. SQL relies on a high level language to get data to/from end users. SQL embodies the latest and greatest features, functions and techniques for getting the most out of DB2 for i.
RPG is the most popular and most used language to solve business problems on AS/400, iSeries, System i, IBM i (take your pick). It embodies the latest and greatest features, functions and techniques for getting the most out of IBM i.
So, what to do? As I stated earlier, it depends.
Let's break the topic up into two parts:
1) Existing applications
2) New applications
Existing Applications
Let me say right up front, there is no reason to modify or throw out existing programs that happen to be written in RPG (also no reason to replace record level access with SQL statements in an existing program). There is no defendable rationale for this behavior. RPG with native record level access is fast, efficient and a good return on investment - past or present. Unless of course these programs no longer meet business requirements...
Given that SQL is the language of database, and the industry standard, IBM i native record level access has not been significantly enhanced for many years. As such, a lot of new and powerful capabilities inside of DB2 for i are not accessible from high level languages via record level operations.
For example, you want to include the ability to store a potentially large and variable character field for your customer’s comments - a character large object (CLOB) column type is available to meet this requirement. Ah, but CLOB columns are only accessible via SQL.
Or you need to store XML in your database. IBM i 7.1 provides the ability to not only store XML as a specific column type, but also to invoke DB2 functions and procedures to process the XML. Once again, this feature is only via SQL.
Of course, as soon as you have this CLOB or XML column in your database, someone will want to search the column for particular words or phrases. Something like, find all the customer comments that contain the word “dissatisfied”. The free of charge license program product OmniFind Text Search Server for DB2 for i (5733-OMF) will let you create a text index over the (CHAR, VARCHAR, CLOB, BLOB, XML) column. And SQL will allow you to issue a linguistic text search. Nice.
Not Keeping Up Costs Money Too
I’m reminded of a past conference audience member who raised their hand when I asked "who is using Microsoft SQL Server?" This particular person was a long time RPG programmer who had recently embraced the PC server world. When I followed up and asked with genuine interest "why are you moving data to SQL Server and processing it there?” the answer was "we need to do some searching of text data and couldn't do it in RPG". Say WHAT! After calming down a bit, I reminded the person that built right into their beloved IBM i was the ability to index and search text documents residing in a DB2 column. There was no valid business or technical reason to abandon DB2 for i in favor of SQL Server; especially when the data originates in IBM i.
Since I'm a database performance and scalability aficionado, I also like the idea of cheating using an encoded vector index (EVI) when aggregates are included and maintained within the DB object data structure. For example, when processing a user request to report revenue totals by year, quarter and month, DB2 can access the existing results within the EVI and avoid doing all the work of reading and summing up the rows. Again this capability is available in IBM i 7.1 but only if using SQL to issue the query.
Speaking of performance, avoid deriding SQL’s speed without first understanding the impact of proper indexing, fair share of memory, optimization goal and reusable ODPs. While DB2 for i does not require high levels of administration, some basic knowledge around how the query optimizer and database engine actually work is a critical success factor.
There are hundreds of examples where DB2 for i has capability built in and ready to go. At the end of the day, if you have existing applications that are unable to meet new or changing business requirements, selective application and database modernization (or re-engineering if you will) is likely required. This modernization will need to include the use of SQL if you want to fully take advantage of what's inside IBM i.
New Applications
In terms of programming languages, I subscribe to the "get on with it" school of thought. In other words, it is very easy to spend all your time, energy (and money) maintaining a state of analysis paralysis debating which particular language is best, or most popular today. Simply put, if the language meets your business and technical requirements, use it. And if that happens to be RPG, be comfortable in the fact that this language is robust and proven. Go ahead, mix and match, use and reuse if suits you. RPG is here to stay.
When it comes to information management and data processing in new applications, I am a bit more stringent in my advice. The recommendation is to use SQL. It is the best and only way to achieve:
- High levels of database centric processing
- Set at a time efficiency
- Advanced information management
By taking advantage of SQL, you will gain more productivity, higher performance and more scalability for information management and data processing. You will get the best return on investment by embarking on good data centric design through proper data modeling, and by allowing DB2 to do as much of the data processing as possible via set based operations. By the way, when it comes to optimizing queries, DB2 for i is state of the art.
Read the original at DB2 for i.
Categories: Blogs
Steve Pitcher › Battle Antivirus: Cloud vs x86-64 vs IBM Power Systems!
July 23rd, 2012
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I was given a short notice assignment this past week. The goal was to move our cloud hosted antivirus service to an in-house solution before the end of the month. The cloud solution was paid for until the end of July and quite expensive. The in-house solution was already bought and paid for as part of a larger package and my task was to coordinate efforts so that IBM Lotus Domino email would send/receive filtered mail through the solution.
I had a couple of small issues with it.
First, the package solution wasn't purchased with high availability, or antivirus really in mind. It was assumed that since we acquired the antivirus anyways then we should use it. This solution was partly installed in our primary data center but no one had asked about the high availability site. No big deal, we could do that for a small licensing fee and a virtual machine at the secondary site.
Second, the solution would run entirely on existing x86-64 servers that are a few years old...not too out of date, but they're getting there. When you can't buy more of the same disk that's already installed you know the machine is nearing end of life.
Then the potential costs started adding up. The primary x86-64 server needed disk. The secondary may need memory.
In my experience, more servers are more points of failure. Two more VM's means two more operating systems to maintain. More security to maintain. There's cables and switches and other pieces of physical equipment in between the virus scanning and our IBM Lotus Domino mail servers on Power Systems.
Also, we're in the process of phasing out servers running on x86-64 virtual machines and moving them to Power Systems. For instance, we have a number of servers defined for a production management system originally written in MS Access. Right now it's being converted to a PHP application with DB2 database on IBM i. Those servers will be decomissioned within the next few months. In fact, the only thing I think we'll be using x86-64 for is Microsoft Active Directory.
So, instead of investing in more x86-64 or looking further to the cloud, I decided on using Bytware's StandGuard Anti-Virus for Domino. I don't give vendor plugs very often but I felt the need to write about this one.
StandGuard Anti-Virus installs on IBM i as a regular licensed program. The Domino component is a simple plug-in with 4 NSF files. I had the entire solution running on both Power Systems servers in no more than 40 minutes total. No additional disk or memory needed. No additional operating systems to maintain. No additional points of failure. It's a solution that plugs in seamlesssly and works out of the can with very minimal configuration.
So...what does it cost for this simplicity? I mean, you'd expect solutions that run on big tin to cost big money, right?
Not at all. The Bytware solution was a far less the cost of our pre-existing cloud solution. I can't really compare with the proposed x86-64 antivirus solution because it was purchased for another purpose, but StandGuard for Domino was less expensive than that also. Even if it did cost more, I would have paid the difference in order to run the solution on IBM i, as any extra costs to maintain x86-64 hardware are eliminated. Plus, StandGuard protects our Integrated File System (IFS) on IBM i so it can't be used as a host for storing viruses.
I've been a Bytware customer when I worked with a former employer and I can say their customer service is still phenomenal. They were very helpful to not only answer my pre-sale technical questions but to make sure I had all the information, temporary license keys and download instructions right away. Their eagerness to help me have it up and running, in my opinion, speaks volumes of their confidence in a good, solid solution.
Power Systems wins. I'm a very happy Bytware customer once again.
I had a couple of small issues with it.
First, the package solution wasn't purchased with high availability, or antivirus really in mind. It was assumed that since we acquired the antivirus anyways then we should use it. This solution was partly installed in our primary data center but no one had asked about the high availability site. No big deal, we could do that for a small licensing fee and a virtual machine at the secondary site.
Second, the solution would run entirely on existing x86-64 servers that are a few years old...not too out of date, but they're getting there. When you can't buy more of the same disk that's already installed you know the machine is nearing end of life.
Then the potential costs started adding up. The primary x86-64 server needed disk. The secondary may need memory.
In my experience, more servers are more points of failure. Two more VM's means two more operating systems to maintain. More security to maintain. There's cables and switches and other pieces of physical equipment in between the virus scanning and our IBM Lotus Domino mail servers on Power Systems.
Also, we're in the process of phasing out servers running on x86-64 virtual machines and moving them to Power Systems. For instance, we have a number of servers defined for a production management system originally written in MS Access. Right now it's being converted to a PHP application with DB2 database on IBM i. Those servers will be decomissioned within the next few months. In fact, the only thing I think we'll be using x86-64 for is Microsoft Active Directory.
So, instead of investing in more x86-64 or looking further to the cloud, I decided on using Bytware's StandGuard Anti-Virus for Domino. I don't give vendor plugs very often but I felt the need to write about this one.
StandGuard Anti-Virus installs on IBM i as a regular licensed program. The Domino component is a simple plug-in with 4 NSF files. I had the entire solution running on both Power Systems servers in no more than 40 minutes total. No additional disk or memory needed. No additional operating systems to maintain. No additional points of failure. It's a solution that plugs in seamlesssly and works out of the can with very minimal configuration.
So...what does it cost for this simplicity? I mean, you'd expect solutions that run on big tin to cost big money, right?
Not at all. The Bytware solution was a far less the cost of our pre-existing cloud solution. I can't really compare with the proposed x86-64 antivirus solution because it was purchased for another purpose, but StandGuard for Domino was less expensive than that also. Even if it did cost more, I would have paid the difference in order to run the solution on IBM i, as any extra costs to maintain x86-64 hardware are eliminated. Plus, StandGuard protects our Integrated File System (IFS) on IBM i so it can't be used as a host for storing viruses.
I've been a Bytware customer when I worked with a former employer and I can say their customer service is still phenomenal. They were very helpful to not only answer my pre-sale technical questions but to make sure I had all the information, temporary license keys and download instructions right away. Their eagerness to help me have it up and running, in my opinion, speaks volumes of their confidence in a good, solid solution.
Power Systems wins. I'm a very happy Bytware customer once again.
Read the original at Steve Pitcher.
Categories: Blogs
I THINK THEREFORE IBM-i blogs › free rpg code editor for windows – Visual RPG Express
July 23rd, 2012
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I'm a big fan of WDSC7 (Websphere Development Studio Client for Windows) for my RPG/CL/DDS/SQL/whatever coding when I'm using windows.. but there are a few others out there. I would love to use IBM's RDi (Rational Developer for IBM i) but while IBM insist on charging around $900 for the program it puts it firmly out of my wallet range. Quite frankly, its such an utterly ridiculous price for a piece of software I cant ever see myself championing it.
I found this article over at Midrange News:
Visual RPG (aka "CodeStudio") is a PC Windows XP-based editor for RPG IV, DDS, and other languages. It was original sold to AS/400 developers as a "CODE/400 for Windows" product when there was no Windows-based "CODE/400" (they only did an OS/2 version). Later it was renamed to "CodeStudio" and that trademark was purchased by a multi-national corporation and the product name was changed back to its original "VisualRPG" and provided at no-charge with no support. It uses FTP to pull down the source from the host and save it back up to the host, hence the source statement change dates are lost.
Here are the instructions (over a decade old but if they help someone out then TADA!)
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 RPG Code Studio Editor circa 2000ad | 3.37 MB |
Read the original at I THINK THEREFORE IBM-i blogs.
Categories: Blogs
