• IBM’s Bob AI Assistant Can Now Live In Your Datacenter

  October 5, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Bob, the AI assistant developed by Big Blue for IBM i and other environments, is now available for deployment on-prem, IBM announced last week. The news is a boon for enterprises, government agencies, and other organizations that can’t risk sending sensitive data off site.

  IBM announced Bob about a year ago to help with application development tasks, including understanding, explaining, generating, refactoring, transforming, and testing code. When Bob 1.0 launched in April, Bob supported IBM i-specific languages like RPG, CL, and DDS, as well as SQL and COBOL. However, it lacked a native connection to IBM i code residing …

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• Start Where the Data Lives: Best Practices for Taking IBM i Into AI

  October 5, 2026 Doug McMaster Ron Venzin and Gregg Rohaly

  The AI conversation has arrived at the IBM i shop, and in most cases, it did not come in through the computer room door. It came down from the boardroom, or over from finance, or sideways from a sales vice president who watched a demo at a conference and wants to know why the company cannot ask its own order history a question in plain English. The IBM i manager is then handed a question that sounds technical but is strategic: can our core platform play in this, or do we need to replace it to get there?

  That is …

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• Guru: A Modernization Experiment Using IBM Bob 2.0

  October 5, 2026 Dan Darnell and Eric Whitcomb

  The most common use case for business applications is the CRUD model. The Create, Read, Update, and Delete operations, performed against a business database, are found almost everywhere. Behind every fancy inquiry dashboard with all the graphical bling you can muster are a slew of tried and true so-called “maintenance programs” doing the heavy lifting over the data being presented. Whether it is back-office parameter tables, customer maintenance, or order entry applications, the CRUD model is fundamental. Most of us can whip out a simple green-screen maintenance program with our eyes closed in, oh, a couple hours or so, depending …

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• How Are IBM i Shops Using AI? Fortra and COMMON Want to Know

  October 5, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Artificial intelligence is taking the world by storm, changing how we do things in fundamental ways. It’s automating complex tasks, accelerating scientific breakthroughs, and shifting how people work. It’s also changing how we interact with the IBM i server, which is the focus of a new survey you can take now from Fortra and COMMON.

  Fortra is no stranger to surveys on IBM i, as we see with the IBM i Marketplace Survey. The company ran its first IBM i Marketplace Survey in the fall of 2014 for release in early 2015, back when it was still known as HelpSystems. …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 34

  October 5, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  This week, you have a bunch of things to look at and ponder, as well as patches to Rational Developer for i and a bunch of security bulletins.

  First, there is a Virtual Ethernet Connectivity Advisory for IBM i 7.6 TR2 and IBM i 7.5 TR8. IBM is investigating a network connectivity issue that can affect IBM i 7.6 TR2 and 7.5 TR8 systems using Virtual Ethernet adapter type 268C. Read this link for further details and do so before putting on the latest cume and groups.

  And in the whoops column, there is also a note that Security PTF …

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• It Is Time Once Again To Take The IBM i Marketplace Survey

  October 5, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The time has come to take the annual IBM i Marketplace Survey from Fortra, and we are asking you to spend a few precious moments and give us all some insight into what is going on inside of your IT organization.

  The annual survey, which is in its 13^th year, opened up on September 15. You can give back to the IBM i community and help nudge IBM and ISVs in directions that are helpful to you by taking the survey, which you can do at this link.

  The results of this survey are an invaluable resource for …

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• PHP’s Evolution On The IBM i Platform Continues

  September 28, 2026 Alex Woodie

  PHP was one of the first open source languages and runtimes to come to IBM i way back in the early 2000s. More than two decades later, open source is thriving on IBM i with hundreds of projects, while PHP is considered a hardened, enterprise-grade language for modern Web applications. This fall will see at least one new release of PHP coming to IBM i, version 8.6, and perhaps more.

  We are all indebted to the early backers of PHP on the IBM i platform, who saw the potential for the open-source project to evolve into the sturdy business language …

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• Protecting IBM i Data For The AI Revolution

  September 28, 2026 Richard Dolewski

  AI is a prime-time conversation in every walk of life. No longer just a buzzword. AI is changing the Enterprise Security model, so I ask, “Are you ready for this next IT transformation?” Organizations everywhere are accelerating artificial intelligence initiatives at a rapid pace and scale.

  Most conversations focus on what AI can do for business today and how fast it will be deployed. AI drives automated workflows, autonomous efficiencies, supply chain improvements, faster time to market, and productivity. True modernization comes from constantly reviewing how things are done, embracing new tools, protocols, and working practices to improve …

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• Guru: Two More Small But Handy RPG Enhancements: LIKE(*EXT) And %LOOKUPNE

  September 28, 2026 Gregory Simmons

  Not every trip into the field calls for hauling the whole pack, and not every search calls for scanning everything by hand. Two of the smaller enhancements in this batch of July PTFs for IBM i 7.5 and 7.6 are exactly that kind of quiet convenience: tools that let you reach for just the piece you actually need instead of doing more work than the job requires.

  DISCLAIMER: The mushroom names and file/field names used in the examples below are purely to give the sample programs some context and make them more interesting. Before foraging for or consuming any wild …

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• IBM i Integration Gives Costco Shoppers Real-Time Inventory

  September 28, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Here’s the scene: Janet is perusing the computer aisles at Costco when suddenly she sees it: The exact configuration of a MacBook Pro she’s been looking for, at a really good price. As she’s getting ready to buy it, Janet makes a grim discovery: Costco is out of that particular MacBook Pro, and the item on display is the last one in the store.

  Janet isn’t the first customer to be disappointed in this way. Retailers have long struggled to adequately reflect the actual warehouse product inventory with the items on display in the front of the store. Communicating out-of-stock …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 33

  September 28, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  Welcome to the 33^rd edition of 2026 of the IBM i PTF Guide. The good news is that there are lot fewer security vulnerabilities for the IBM i platform that we reported on last week. There are, once again, updates to IBM i 7.3 through IBM i 7.6 for various PTF groups.

  We will start with the security issues and patches, and count them off to keep track of them.

  1. Security Bulletin: Multiple Vulnerabilities in IBM Java SDK affect IBM WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Application Server Liberty due to August 2026 CPU, which is available to …

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• IBM “Price Harmonization” Increases For Power Systems Coming In The New Year

  September 21, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When we look back a few years from now, in like maybe 2032 or so, we will look at 2026 as the year of the price increase. Big Blue, along with other system makers and the component makers whose gear goes into those systems, have all had price increases – often very large ones, and sometimes with what looks to me like opportunistic pricing. That’s when vendors raise prices by more than you would think was warranted.

  Sometime in early September – I think it might have been on September 1, 2, or 3 – IBM announced a price harmonization …

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• Code For i Continues To Grow. Here Is What’s New

  September 21, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Code for i has been the hottest open source project in the IBM i community for several years, and that popularity is not dropping. In fact, the community behind the red hot project continues to improve the VS Code-based development environment, including new functionality that we can expect to see released in the future.

  Code for i is a VS Code plug-in originally created by Liam Allan in 2021 to make Web-based development possible for ILE developers on IBM i. The project has exploded in popularity over the past five years, with nearly 93,000 installs recorded on the Microsoft Marketplace …

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• PowerSC: Your One-Stop Shop For Security On IBM i – And Beyond

  September 21, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Keeping on top of changing security threats is difficult, to say the least. It is even harder to map changing threats to changing configurations on your IBM i server. When your IT network also includes AIX and Linux systems, the difficulty gets multiplied. For these types of environments, IBM provides a tool called PowerSC.

  When IBM launched PowerSC (which stands for security and compliance) as an IBM Lab Services product way back in 2010, it was primarily designed for setting up security configurations and running audits on AIX. That is not the case today, as the tool provides a plethora …

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• As I See It: You’ve Been Flocked

  September 21, 2026 Victor Rozek

  Perhaps you have had a similar experience. You’re hiking in a park or in a wilderness area and since it’s ungodly hot, you’ve taken care to eat well and hydrate. Now you’re miles from the trailhead and the nearest bathroom and you have to poop. Into the bushes you go. Ordinarily, not an event worthy of mention or concern. But these days, on at least one occasion, I’ve had a disquieting thought: I wonder if there’s a trail cam filming me?

  Privacy, if not dead, is on life support. It’s a safe bet that wherever you are and whatever you’re …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 32

  September 21, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  Another week, and another bunch of security vulnerabilities for the IBM i platform. Plus a slew of stuff to update IBM i 7.3 through IBM i 7.6. Let us start with the security issues and patches, as we always do, and count them off to 11 so we can keep track of them.

  1. Security Bulletin: IBM Db2 Mirror for i is vulnerable to Authentication Bypass by Spoofing [CVE-2026-18065], which you can read HERE. Affected Products and Versions:

  IBM i Release	5770-DBM 	PTF Numbers
  7.6				SJ11475
  7.5				SJ11474 
  7.4				SJ11471 
  

  2. Security Bulletin: IBM i Is Affected By Multiple …

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• Finally: Some Pricing Information On The Power S1112 Entry Server

  September 14, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  UPDATED: The entry “Bonnell+” Power S1112 server based on the Power11 processor – the only machine that has a P05 software tier for the IBM i operating system – has been shipping for six weeks now, and I have been digging around trying to get detailed, feature-level pricing for the new machine. I have yet to find that fine-grained pricing that I love to have my hands on, but I did get some help from some friends in the reseller community to get current prices for six different configurations of the Power S1112 – two tower configurations and four rack …

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• Rocket Automates Manual IBM i Tasks With AI

  September 14, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Rocket Software has a multi-pronged AI strategy that spans multiple products and platforms. When it comes to the IBM i platform, this AI push has resulted in Rocket adding AI features that will automate previously manual tasks across its application modernization, change management, and high availability products.

  AI continues to be the elephant in the IT room, but unlike those quiet elephants in that expression, which no one admits is there, this is the elephant that nobody can stop talking about and for good reason: The 2026 edition of AI appears to be the real deal.

  Take a KPMG survey …

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• Guru: Where’s The Table?

  September 14, 2026 Ted Holt

  It began with an irritation. I considered it a simple request. “Which file did my SQL query read?” I was using the Run SQL Scripts tool to modify an SQL query with unqualified table names. And yet I knew of no ready way to determine the schema (library) name of any of the files. How was I to know which tables I had just queried?

  Let me back up a bit. My SQL client of choice is the Run SQL Scripts tool, which is part of IBM’s Access Client Solutions (ACS). It is not unusual for me to copy and …

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• LaserVault Goes iSCSI With Virtual Tape Library

  September 14, 2026 Alex Woodie

  LaserVault, the popular virtual tape library (VTL) for IBM i environments from Electronic Storage Corp., has gained support for iSCSI, giving customers more connectivity options beyond Fibre Channel and SAS connections. The new iSCSI support will be particularly useful for customers running the LaserVault ViTL offering in the cloud.

  LaserVault ViTL is a disk-based backup solution that emulates LTO drives in IBM i and open systems environments. Customers have typically plugged the LaserVault device – either the appliance sold by Electronic Storage Corp. or the ViTL software running on an X86 server – into the IBM i server using those …

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