[From SQL Server Central]
Recently, a project required that after downloading data from AS/400 tables to load a data warehouse, a table in AS/400 be updated with the time stamp to indicate when the load process started and when it completed. These time stamps are then used by the nightly AS/400 process to determine the data for the next load. The data warehouse load process used to be a Java application and the project charter was to eliminate the Java program and move the entire processing to SQL Server 2000 and make use of the linked server to AS/400. The Java program used to read the data one row at a time per table and then either insert or update based on the Add/Update indicator. Obviously it was a slow process.
The article continues at
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bHullur/updatingas400linkedservertablesfromsqlserver.asp