Changing Development and Operating Ideas in IT
June 5, 2017
This week, I’ll finish up this three-part series by exploring application software development and groups that run the software within a company. This area of IT has undergone a significant amount of growth and change over the years due to the enormous success of computer use in business. The Way It Was Not long ago, […]
ArticlesDavid Cutaia
June 5, 2017
Name: David Cutaia Title: Domino and IBM i system adminstrator, RPG programmer Company Name: Brown & Bigelow Inc. Company’s Function: Promotional material distributor HQ: St. Paul, Minnesota Years in IT: 27 The biggest challenge our data center is facing today is keeping up with the never-ending changes to technology and infrastructure. The next big […]
ArticlesThe Future Becomes Reality
June 2, 2017
Imagine being able to look at a car’s engine—almost as if you had X-ray vision—without lifting the hood. Or asking a handheld device how you can fix an oil leak even if you have no idea what you’re doing. Now extrapolate that to jet engines or oilrigs, the complexities of which can be mind-boggling to […]
ArticlesUnintended Emissions
June 2, 2017
Natural gas is considered by many to be a cleaner energy source. The downside to natural gas is the methane that is a primary component. If it leaks into the air—estimates suggest approximately 1-2 percent leakage is common at production sites—it absorbs the sun’s heat and warms the Earth’s atmosphere. Methane is estimated to be […]
ArticlesIBM Lab Services Helps Clients Stay Vigilant Against Data Hackers
June 1, 2017
In July 2015, an operator noticed some heavy UNIX* System Service (USS) activity that seemed highly suspicious. Some scripts were sending spam messages all over the world from the client’s mainframe. The client called IBM Systems Lab Services for z Systems* and LinuxONE*, and the Lab Services team sprang into action. The team of highly […]
CICS TS Performance and Tuning: A Rich Tradition
June 1, 2017
It may sound geeky, but one of my favorite discussion topics—usually limited to a client’s system programmers and sometimes manager—is CICS Transaction Server (TS) performance and tuning. Sysprog is a group I’m very comfortable with, because there aren’t a lot of times I can share an acronym-laden conversation with a bunch of enthusiastic groupies passionate […]
ArticlesWhy AIX Fits Well With Hybrid Cloud Strategies
June 1, 2017
In the last two years, we have seen a dramatic upswing in the number of IBM clients that are investing in full-scale projects to modernize their critical IT infrastructure. Some are looking to optimize their software licenses by consolidating workloads onto smaller footprints and moving nonessential capacity to offsite clouds. Others are developing new applications […]
ArticlesModernize Environment and Applications to Stay Competitive
June 1, 2017
It’s official: The online customer experience is driving revenue significantly in both directions. Businesses and consumers are becoming merciless as they demand clear, clean, seamless transactions in real time. This trend is measurable. A leading search engine calculates average loading time for a mobile site at 19 seconds—and says reducing that time to five seconds […]
ArticlesFrom Military to Mainframe
June 1, 2017
Working as a z/OS* systems programmer on an infrastructure team is not quite the role Torrie McLaughlin once envisioned for her career. But both the job and the journey that led her to it are rewarding. “I get a big kick out of knowing that the system I work on every day is the backbone […]
ArticlesEvolving Ideas in IT
May 29, 2017
Last week, I wrote about David M. Kroenke’s list of components in a business computer system—computer equipment or hardware, programs, data, procedures and personnel. It’s a simple but enduring model, and you can use it in various situations to help discover useful information about new systems or applications. This week, I’ll discuss some constructs and […]