• Paul talks to Tim Rowe, Business Architect for Application Development & Systems Management for IBM i, about recent enhancements to IBM i Access Client Solutions, what’s happening with open source on IBM i, and a family milestone.
• Tim: "The end of July of this year we had our M6 version of ACS just was delivered with a number of great enhancements for it. One of the areas that we have been specifically focusing on over the past few months now is the area for the database engineer, the database administrator, the database developer."
• "Now that RDi and the rational-and the RPG compliers now report directly into the IBM i development team, the cool part is we have been able to work a lot closer with them, not that we hadn't worked closely but now they actually report to the same management structure, so we've been doing some things a little differently and one of the cool things that we've been able to do is basically take some of these components from ACS and embed them right into RDi."

Source: http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/trends/iTALK-WITH-TUOHY/Tim-Rowe-on-Enhancements-to-IBM-i-Access-Client-So/

IBM i Finds A Place At Edge Conference
by Dan Burger

• The IBM i community was born and raised with platform-specific tendencies. That was the way of the IBM IT world for many years. It's not the way anymore.
• To encourage MSPs, IBM is rolling out cloud server incentive program, which was announced at Edge. The program includes three server options, with technology that has been in the marketplace for several years, but repackaged to be cloud relevant.
• Whether its on-premise, or in IBM's cloud, or some of each, Balog says the Power Systems strategy is positioned for the future. It's his job to make it so.

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh092616-story01.html

Protecting the Business with Smart Cloud Choices
by Steve Pitcher

• A few weeks ago, I was speaking with a colleague at another company who had a major virus headache. From what they could gather, a user opened a zip file from an email that turned out to be a fantastic cryptolocker variant.
• Now, here’s where IT gets the question from management: “Would we have had this issue if it was in the cloud?”
• Cloud is so blurred because it’s received so much marketing. Every major software vendor has a cloud offering now. It’s like gluten-free products. Do you really know whether you shouldn’t eat gluten?

Source: http://www.mcpressonline.com/commentary/protecting-the-business-with-smart-cloud-choices.html

Internet of Things: Creating a Connected, Smarter World
by Joydip Kanjilal

• The Internet of Things (IoT) has quickly become a buzz amongst the technology giants and the business communities worldwide. It is an emerging technology that has technical, social, and economic significance. Most importantly, it is set to be the biggest thing to happen to technology since the .com boom.
• Have you ever considered how IoT is going to change your world? Imagine this: Suppose you’re running late to work. You’re on the way to the office, and your car accesses your schedule and guides you through the fastest route available so that you don't have to miss your meeting.
• The key elements of IoT include sensing, communication, data capture, data consolidation, and delivery of information. "Sensing" refers to the ability to gather data and information right at the point of activity. These sensors facilitate interconnection between the physical and digital worlds hence enabling real-time data to be collected and processed seamlessly.

Source: http://www.mcpressonline.com/general/internet-of-things-creating-a-connected-smarter-world.html

IBM Prepping For October Power Systems Push
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

• IBM is not going to refresh its commercial Power Systems line with Power8+ processors this year, as it might have done with the strategy from years past, but as we pointed out a few weeks ago, there is a Power8 chip with integrated NVLink ports aimed at hybrid supercomputers.
• Just because there is no Power8+ chip driving a system refresh does not mean Big Blue does not want to tweak the Power Systems lineup and also tweak its pricing as well as wheel and deal to try to get more of its existing customer base to move to its Power8 systems and customers running on other platforms--predominately systems based on Intel's Xeon E5 and E7 processors--to switch to Power iron running Linux.
• For the IBM i ecosystem, we think that there is always a trickle of customers who are moving off mainframes and other proprietary platforms, but for the most part system sales are to customers who have long used IBM i and its predecessors to run their most critical workloads.

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh100316-story01.html

Two Fall Conferences Are Must-See IT
by Dan Burger

• COMMON has its Fall Conference scheduled for October 24-26 in Columbus, Ohio, and BeNeLux Power 2016--hosted by COMMON organizations in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg is set for October 19 and 20 in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
• Both conferences feature technical sessions, workshops, certifications, networking opportunities, and vendor expos.
• Although they are predominately focused on IBM i topics, there are sessions pertaining to the other Power Systems platforms--AIX and Linux--as well. The selection of subject matter experts presenting educational sessions are top notch at both events.

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh100316-story05.html

Searching Source In The Twenty-First Century
by Ted Holt

• I love it when IBM gives me a way for me to do something I couldn't do before. When I think of the tools I had to work with three decades ago, I could almost weep. Recently I had to search a source member for a string of characters, and I was overjoyed that LPEX gave me what SEU couldn't.
• To set the stage for my requirement, I should mention that as a matter of practice, I qualify data structures in my RPG programs. For me to omit the qualified keyword, I have to have a reason.

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/fhg/fhg100416-story03.html

And that's it for this edition of IBM i Pulse. Please let me know if there are any improvements I can make or news sources to add. :)

Hope to see you at our upcoming webinar on "Profound.js: The Agile Approach to Legacy Modernization"!