Customers waiting for a solution from IBM to support their PHP applications running on IBM i can breathe a sigh of relief.

Written by Chris Smith

Most of the estimated 1,000 PHP developers at ZendCon this year were excited about Zend Technologies' new cloud platform (PaaS)—www.phpcloud.com—that allows developers to collaboratively develop and then host applications online from a choice of hosting platforms. Who needs a server when you have the cloud?

Faster! Faster! Everybody wants their apps and reports to run faster!

Written by Kent Milligan

All of you have users and bosses who regularly ask if it's possible to make applications and reports run faster on your IBM i. Usually, these applications and reports spend a significant amount of time processing data stored in your DB2 for i databases. This article contains seven DB2 for i performance-tuning tips for speeding up the applications and reports running on your IBM i systems.

Having AQP is like having "quality control" inside your query plans.

Written by Mike Cain

According to Wikipedia, "adaptive behavior" is a type of behavior that is used to adjust to another type of behavior or situation. This is often characterized by a kind of behavior that allows an individual to change an unconstructive or disruptive behavior to something more constructive.

DB2 for i, the powerful database management system integrated into IBM i, has the distinction of possessing this adaptive characteristic for SQL queries. Adaptive query processing, or AQP, has really come into its own in the latest version of IBM i. For years, DB2 for i has been known for ease of use, low total cost of ownership, and unique capabilities aimed at solving business problems.

New in 7.1, FieldProc allows column-level encryption without requiring changes to existing applications.

Written by Kent Milligan

With all the scrutiny and legislation associated with protecting personal sensitive data, a good number of IBM i developers have had to investigate the effort it would take to add column-level encryption logic into their application programs. Anyone who has done this analysis quickly discovers that it's not a trivial amount of work.

Version 1.1.2 of DB2 Web Query is teeming with product improvements. New features such as InfoAssist, the JD Edwards adapter, and RIA can help you create eye-popping reports.

Written by Gene Cobb

On December 10, 2010, a new and improved version of DB2 Web Query for i was made generally available to the IBM i community. Packaged as 1.1.2, this exciting new release is chock-full of improvements and goodies that will make your experience using this product even more enjoyable than before. A major emphasis in this release was to improve the "out of the box" experience by making the development tools easier to use while improving query performance, but other areas were addressed as well. In fact, there are so many new features that I cannot describe them all in this article. So I am going to focus on the following major product improvements:

Exchange files with customers, trading partners, and other servers without writing tedious scripts.

Written by Linoma Software

Editor's Note: To download and try GoAnywhere Director at no obligation, visit the MC Software Center.

GoAnywhere Director streamlines and secures the exchange of data with your customers, trading partners, and other servers. With Director, you can connect to almost any system or trading partner using standard protocols, including FTP, SFTP (SSH), SCP, FTPS (SSL/TLS), HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, POP3, and IMAP. Director also supports OpenPGP and ZIP with AES encryption for securing sensitive documents.

Pipe iconv into your Qshell command to create ASCII instead of EBCDIC.

Written by Tom Snyder

In my previous article, "Using DB2 with Sed, Tail, Pipes, and Redirection from Within Qshell," we used SQL to export files directly to text files on the IFS. These files were created in EBCDIC. A reader stated to me that he could view the results in cat, but when he dragged them across the network, they were unreadable and asked if it was because it was EBCDIC. The answer is yes, the results are in EBCDIC, but we can change that.

So you think you've already heard about all the enhancements to DB2 for i? Don't be so sure.

Written by Kent Milligan

The IBM i 7.1 announcement materials have given the most ink to DB2 enhancements for XML integration and column-level encryption enablement—and deservedly so. However, the DB2 for i 7.1 release includes several unheralded features that are sure to make life easier for both programmers and administrators alike.