Andrew Clark on DevOps and Git
May 3, 2021
New: Subscribe to TechChannel podcasts on Apple. Charlie Guarino: Hi everybody. Welcome to another edition of TechTalk. I’m very happy today to be joining Andrew Clark. Andrew is the DevOps manager at Arcad Software. Andrew has 30 years of development experience on IBM i and he’s an expert on everything Db2, i, and cross platform SQL. […]
ArticlesHow to Simplify the Lives of Non-Mainframe Trained IT Employees
April 23, 2021
Many people think that using a mainframe is hard. They have a picture in their minds of green screens and arcane subsystems that are incredibly hard to get to grips with. The trouble is that so many of the people who work on mainframes have been doing so for 40 years. And that means they […]
ArticlesIBM i Gets a Refresh, Increasing Automation and Storage Options
April 20, 2021
The latest round of IBM i technology refreshes (TRs) provides enhancements to offerings, services and hardware. On Tuesday, April 13, IBM announced the latest round of OS TRs—IBM i 7.4 TR4 and 7.3 TR10. These TRs demonstrate a commitment to IBM i services, showcase a continuing push toward automation and represent a heavy investment in […]
ArticlesIBM i 7.3 TR10 and IBM i 7.4 TR4 Offer a New Query Supervisor Feature
April 14, 2021
IBM announced IBM i 7.3 TR10 and 7.4 TR4 on April 13. This announcement contains all sorts of goodies and enhancements designed to make life of the system administration and performance professional much easier. The most exciting feature is the Query Supervisor. We all know that Db2 for i is easy to manage compared to many other databases, but understanding […]
ArticlesResolving ‘Technical Debt’ With Education
April 12, 2021
This year is a better time than any to get started addressing technical debt in your business. If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that investing the time and energy into creating sound infrastructure in our business, especially in technology, can make or break a business during uncertain times. Technical debt is caused by many factors […]
When Does a User Profile Become a Bottleneck?
April 7, 2021
I’ve worked with several clients recently where a user profile, which could be a group profile, has become a major system bottleneck. This issue has taken two forms: Performance issues that occur because many objects are created and deleted for a single owning user profile Availability issues because a user profile hits the limit on […]
ArticlesWhy Having a Backup and Recovery Plan Improves IBM i Vitality
March 26, 2021
Monitoring the vitality of your IBM i system is a cornerstone of keeping your business running 24-7. A key component of IBM i’s vitality includes recovering quickly after a disaster with the least amount of disruption to your customers and revenue streams. Debbie Saugen has heard all the excuses for why a company isn’t prioritizing […]
ArticlesStanding Pat Is No Longer an Option With the HMC
March 19, 2021
Lifetime IBM Champion Jaqui Lynch recently wrote about why you need to upgrade to the latest HMC levels and how you can accomplish this task. Her article is full of good information, and you’ll find some great, bookmark-worthy links at the end. But here’s the thing: We―and by we, I mean consultants, along with IBM […]
E-BooksTechChannel E-book: Unlocking COBOL Business Value
March 9, 2021
The ubiquity of both the IBM Z platform and COBOL programming language comes from the forethought IBM put into each in 1964 when the first mainframe was launched. COBOL was optimized for business processing with no need to recompile programs. As a result, it continues to run the world’s economy today. But many COBOL shops […]
ArticlesUpdating to HMC v9
March 2, 2021
IBM brought out HMC v9 M910 in March 2018 for x86, Power and virtual HMCs. Since then, there have been numerous updates to the v9 code, adding features and fixing bugs. As new releases have come out, requirements for the HMC hardware have changed. The latest release (V9R2M950) no longer supports the x86 HMCs (7042-*) […]