Susan Gantner, Jon Paris and Paul Tuohy on the Future of Virtual Conferences
July 1, 2021
Charlie Guarino: Hi everybody. Welcome to another edition of TechTalk. This is Charlie Guarino and today we are doing a departure from our traditional podcasts. In the past, it's always been one on one where we have one person, and we have an entire interview about that, but we're doing a different format today. If I […]
ArticlesBest Practices for AIX in a SAN Environment: Part 1
June 24, 2021
AIX supports different SAN topologies, switches and storage servers from multiple vendors. This represents challenges, due to the fact the interoperability among vendors is less than ideal. Therefore, one important aspect to get a reliable AIX is to follow the best practices for the SAN environment. In this article, I want to explain the major […]
ArticlesMainframe Connectivity: What’s Missing?
June 21, 2021
We can, perhaps, all remember a time when a simple 3270 terminal emulator was all we needed to access the mainframe without needing a directly-connected terminal. And we were really pleased that we could work from anywhere using this simple solution to our communication problem. It worked and our expectations were not very high. Next, […]
ArticlesHorses for Courses: Choosing the Right Player, Platform and Tool in the COBOL World
June 21, 2021
“OCCURS DEPENDING ON” is a wonderful clause in COBOL that resonates powerfully with a favorite answer that IBMers like to give to big, generic questions about how to choose and configure their technology: “It depends … ” In the first case, the programmer may be asking for arrays, while in the latter the IBMer is […]
Articles5 Reasons to Choose Open-Source Solutions for Software Development
June 16, 2021
Open source has revolutionized the software development industry. Open source means that the software created is released under a license that allows anyone to use it. The code is also distributed along with the software. Some of the most commonly used software systems in the world are open source. For example, the Firefox web browser […]
ArticlesPower Systems Best Practices Doc Updated, dnf, New IBM Customer Support Portals and More.
June 15, 2021
The Power Implementation Quality Standard for Commercial Workloads document has been updated. Download Version 2.4 (June 2021) here. This presentation details the expected best practices implementation guidelines for Power Systems hardware, including virtualized systems. As you go through it, notice that, starting with page 9, there’s typically an indicator (in red and in parenthesis) of […]
ArticlesPowerVM Upgrades and Top 12 Tips for Maintaining Your VIO Servers
June 15, 2021
PowerVM v3 has now been out for some time. In this article, I’ll go over what you should think about when maintaining VIO servers. I’ve noticed that once a VIO server is installed, people tend to ignore it until they are forced to upgrade it—this is not recommended. So, here are my top 12 tips […]
ArticlesWhere to Find the Next Generation of IBM i Developers
June 14, 2021
Finding qualified developers is the single most important issue employers on IBM i face today. The issue is two-fold: there are less people in the workforce with IBM i experience and many developers with experience don’t have the modern knowledge to stay current. Today’s college degrees very seldom, if ever, contain IBM i education leaving very […]
ArticlesConsolidate SQL Educational Resources With the SQL Tutor
June 8, 2021
Developers often use SQL to access data in Db2 for i. With the ever-increasing number of IBM i Services, system administrators have a need to learn SQL as well. Regardless of whether you are new to SQL, or an experienced SQL developer, there is always more learn. A relatively new resource, the SQL Tutor, is available […]
E-BooksTechChannel E-book: Why Knowing Your Organization’s Security Needs Can Help Keep Data Locked Down
June 7, 2021
IBM Power Systems hardware and AIX are innately secure—but even top-notch security requires monitoring, patching and security planning to guard against bad actors and keep data locked down. Complacency is a recipe for disaster when it comes to security. An effective security plan requires a multilayered approach that starts with people, then physical security measures, […]
ArticlesSecurity Analytics Market to Gain Traction Across Healthcare Sector
June 7, 2021
The global market for security analytics solutions and services is set to churn out massive profits in 2021 and beyond. Here’s how: The 21st century is no doubt one of the profitable eras for large-scale digitization. With massive shifts toward digital platforms being a protocol of the current COVID-19 age, digitization has, perhaps, touched the apex. […]
ArticlesEmbracing Automation Enables Effective IBM i HA/DR Planning
June 4, 2021
Automation is a boon for systems administrators. They can, for example, schedule jobs to run at specific times and days, considering issues such as job types and runtimes, differing time zones, end-of-day office closings and resource consumption. Although not entirely hands off—admins may have to respond to various job alerts—automation has addressed some particularly acute […]
ArticlesHow the Software World and Programming Practices Have Evolved
June 3, 2021
Programming, or writing software as it is commonly known today, has been my profession for 51 years, and for fun for 10 years before that. Like most things, it has changed dramatically as I have grown up with it. Starting out in 1960, we had only one manual of about 50 pages, a principles of […]
ArticlesAutomate the Execution of Python Scripts With Microsoft Windows Task Scheduler
June 3, 2021
In this tutorial, we will learn how to automatically execute Python scripts using the Microsoft Windows Task Scheduler. For simplicity, we choose to use a Python script that simply writes to a text file, the date and time that the script executes, every time it gets executed. Create a new, empty text file anywhere on […]
ArticlesThe Latest in RPG Built-in Functions
June 3, 2021
In the same announcement as the IBM i 7.4 TR4, three new RPG Built-In-Functions (BIFs)—%Upper, %Lower and %Split—were introduced. Let’s take a look at what they offer. %Upper and %Lower The purpose of these BIFs is pretty obvious from their names and they do exactly what you would expect them to. Namely they take an […]
PodcastsNicole Fagen on SHARE and Women in IT
June 1, 2021
New: Subscribe to TechChannel podcasts on Apple. Reg Harbeck: Hi, this is Reg Harbeck and today I’m here with my colleague and friend Nicole Fagen, who is really deeply involved in the whole mainframe ecosystem including SHARE and including Women in IT. Well Nicole, tell us. How did you end on the mainframe, at SHARE and all […]
PodcastsCharlie Guarino Speaks With the Original Voice of Aussie Siri, Karen Jacobsen
June 1, 2021
New: Subscribe to TechChannel podcasts on Apple. Charlie Guarino: Hi everybody, welcome to another edition of TechTalk, I’m really thrilled today to introduce a very good friend who I met in New York City roughly about 10 years ago and I have to be honest. I don’t have many friends that I can say have appeared on […]
PodcastsSteve Pitcher on Malware Threats to IBM i
June 1, 2021
New: Subscribe to TechChannel podcasts on Apple. Paul Tuohy: Okay. Hi everyone, welcome to another iTalk with Tuohy. I’m delighted to—well, actually, I don’t know if I am delighted because we’re going to be talking about something that’s terrifying the life out of me so anyway welcome back to iTalk Steve Pitcher from iTech Solutions. Steve, how […]
ArticlesData Mining Tools Can Fuel the Evolution of Retail Strategies
May 31, 2021
A faster penetration and growth in internet usage worldwide have caused a veritable explosion in data generation in recent years. In 2006, Clive Humby, a noted data scientist, hailed data as the new oil, a phrase that is seemingly supported by the vast amount of digital data being created, captured, and replicated over the years. According to […]
ArticlesBound to Compile: Skipping the Source Code
May 31, 2021
I like interpretive and scripting languages: The source is the code so you never have to go hunting for the original text version of a program when updating it. But they do run much more slowly than compiled ones. Consequently, some scripting languages, like REXX, can also be compiled in order to speed them up. […]
ArticlesHow to Defend Your Mainframe From Various Hacking Techniques and Insider Threats
May 26, 2021
Many people think that their mainframe is totally secure. After all, why wouldn’t it be? For a start, they’re running an external security manager (ESM) that limits what people can do and what they can access. There’s the system authorization facility (SAF), a z/OS interface providing infrastructure-security administration tools that help prevent unauthorized access to […]
ArticlesNode.js on z/OS: How Real Is It?
May 24, 2021
Node.js is a popular environment to allow JavaScript to run outside of a browser. A 2020 Stack Overflow survey saw 50% vote Node.js as the most popular framework, library or tool. Anyone working with the open-source mainframe framework Zowe will be familiar with Node.js: it’s needed for both the Zowe server and Zowe CLI. But […]
ArticlesAfter Helping Clients Navigate Challenging Times, the AIX World Moves Forward
May 24, 2021
From the beginning, IBM AIX was touted for its reliability. That this characteristic has endured was never more evident than over the past year, as IBM clients relied upon the AIX OS and Power Systems hardware to manage their operations through a challenging time. IBM’s Carl Burnett, Distinguished Engineer, Power Systems software development, believes that AIX/Power […]
ArticlesAnnouncing Anaconda for LinuxONE and IBM Z
May 20, 2021
For many data scientists, having access to AI projects on any data platform is not only more productive, but very important to the success of the technology. In fact, according to the new “Global AI Adoption Index 2021,” commissioned by IBM in partnership with Morning Consult, 90% of IT professionals say that being able to run their […]
ArticlesContainerized Data Services and Software-Defined Storage Come to IBM Z
May 19, 2021
After an unforgettable 2020, this year is filled with hope. The biggest vaccination campaign in history is underway and we are slowly going back to a new normal. After these eventful past 12 months, there’s a quote by author Hillary DePiano that describes well what to do next: “You can get excited about the future. The past […]