• Sibley Highlights Power10’s Security and AI Capabilities

  October 13, 2021 Alex Woodie

  As the vice president and global offering management for Cognitive Systems at IBM, Steve Sibley often gets the honor of delivering the keynote address at the annual POWERUp conference. During his keynote at last week’s show, Sibley used the time to delve into the latest Power10 processor and its extensive list of new features, including some designed specifically to boost AI and security.

  “One of the real privileges I have as project manager for Power Systems to be able to take the key innovations our team is developing in Rochester and our different development labs around the world, and bring …

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• End of Life Looms for PHP 7.3

  October 13, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Organizations that are running PHP version 7.3 have just over a month to upgrade to a newer version and avoid losing bug fixes and security fixes when 7.3 hits the end of life (EOL) on December 6. The good news is that PHP version 7.4 and 8.0 are stable and will be supported for some time. The not-so-good news is it appears a large number of IBM i shops are still running older releases of the PHP language.

  According to an informal poll conducted by Seiden Group last month, about half of the IBM i shops that participated in a …

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• Rewriting IBM i RPG Software Is Almost Always A Bad Idea

  October 13, 2021 Roger Pence

  There are perils and pitfalls in attempting to rewrite your IBM i-AS/400 RPG applications. While there are some cases where such an attempt may be a good idea, you need to consider the big rewrite option carefully from every angle. It is often the worst step you can take.

  As you start to realize that your IBM i RPG software, at least in its current form, is nearing the end of its useful life, rewriting your RPG application is an obvious alternative. We implore you to give this option very serious consideration before you jump into it. Rewriting a large, …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, October 13

  October 13, 2021 Jenny Thomas

  Next week is your last opportunity to attend the final RPG & DB2 Summit. The live online Summit features training on RPG, SQL, ILE, RDi, and ACS, to name just a few topics. IBM’s Steve Will, chief architect of the IBM i, kicks off the festivities today with a discussion on next gen apps for our favorite platform. Will’s opening session is open to the entire IBM i ecosystem, and you can find out more about how to listen in, and get more info on the Summit, in the “Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings” section below. We hope …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 41

  October 13, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  Big Blue has been on a High Impact/Pervasive PTF kick lately with the IBM i platform, hasn’t it? Between that and the ongoing security patches, you are all probably hopping out there. Unless you are one of the shops that doesn’t keep you IBM i system up to date, in which case we are, first, wondering why are you reading this sentence and, second, very glad that you are so we can remind you of what you already know. Mainly:

  That.

  You.

  Should.

  Keep.

  IBM i,

  Patches.

  Up.

  To.

  Date.

  Full stop.

  Having said that, here is the rundown of …

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• The Shape Of The IBM To Come

  October 11, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Big Blue is getting ready to spin off its managed services businesses, which represents about a third of its revenue stream and a big chunk of its employee base, into the separate company called Kyndryl and hopes to have this task done by the end of the year. Last week, IBM’s top brass had a virtual meeting with Wall Street to host its Investor Day, and IBM’s chief executive officer, Arvind Krishna, and the rest of the team unveiled a new segment and financial reporting structure that will be put into effect once the Kyndryl spinout is done.

  At that …

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• Thoroughly Modern: Talking IBM i System Management With Abacus

  October 11, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If you want the members of your IT department to focus on the core applications that define, run, and improve your business, and they also have to manage your systems, and you have limited budgets to do it all, you have to learn to let go of something. There are only so many hours in a day, only so many days in a year, and only so many people to do the work. Something has to give, and you have to keep what brings the real value.

  Having an IBM i platform provides plenty of value to start, as IBM …

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• IBM Shares COVID-19 Success Stories at POWERUp 2021

  October 11, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Hearing how your fellow IBM i customers use the platform is always fun, and it’s often informative, too. The IBM i product management team checked both of those boxes last week during the POWERUp 2021 conference, where they detailed how a handful of IBM i shops have found success with the platform, particularly during COVID-19.

  Take Magid, for example. The Illinois-based company is a manufacturer and distributor of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as masks and gloves. Demand for PPE spiked at the start of COVID-19, and has remained high throughout the pandemic. That demand caused the company to make …

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• We Need You To Take The 2022 IBM i Marketplace Survey

  October 11, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It is hard to believe that it is actually 2021, and it is even harder to believe that we are in the final weeks of the 2022 IBM i Marketplace Survey. This is the eighth annual survey, which takes the pulse of the IBM i community and gives us some insight into what you all are up to.

  As you well know, the community has to express its needs if it ever hopes to steer IBM’s behavior as well as that of big third-party hardware, software, and services providers. Believe it or not, Big Blue is more open about receiving …

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• Early Bird Special For Common Europe Congress Ends October 14

  October 11, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Copenhagen, which is known as “the happiest city in the world,” has its coronavirus situation under control and will be hosting the Common Europe Congress user group meeting from October 31 through November 3. Unlike the COMMON POWERUp 2021 event, which was supposed to be hosted in person in Virginia Beach, Virginia, as well as online, but has now been switched to a totally virtual event.

  Denmark has had its borders open since September 9, and vaccination rates are high and cases are very low. The reason, in part, has to do with high trust in the Danish government and …

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• The Mod Squad Comes Together to Modernize Old RPG

  October 6, 2021 Alex Woodie

  In the early 70s, a group of fictional social misfits joined up to solve crimes on the hit television series The Mod Squad. Now a group of real-life IBM i professionals of the same name are uniting to solve an equally pressing problem: modernizing old RPG code, including some that dates back to the 1970s.

  “You’ve heard of IBM‘s upward compatibility,” says Rich Ollari, an IBM i veteran who is one of the ringleaders of the new Mod Squad. “Code that ran back in the 80s, even the 70s, is still running today, and that’s what we’re fighting with. …

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• Every IBM i Shop Must Have An API Integration Strategy

  October 6, 2021 Daniel Magid

  I have had several very exciting conversations with IBM i users recently about new technology as they have reached out to Eradani for help in advancing their IBM i applications using APIs. More and more I hear how IBM i pros are learning new things and innovating to transform their IBM systems into examples of leading-edge computing. One of the cool things IBM i users are recognizing is that the value of APIs comes not just from making IBM i data available to other applications and outside users, but also from adding additional function to RPG applications by calling out …

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• Rocket Software Names New CEO

  October 6, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Rocket Software yesterday announced that Milan Shetti, currently the company’s president and a former Hewlett-Packard vice president, next month will take over the CEO position from Andy Youniss, who will step back from day-to-day operations but will remain with the company he co-founded more than 30 years ago.

  Youniss co-founded Rocket Software in 1990 in the garage of his home near Boston, Massachusetts with a  plan to develop and sell tools for IBM’s DB2 database, as it was then called (it only recently was renamed Db2, with the lowercase “b”). Its first product was a resource monitor for IBM’s …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, October 6

  October 6, 2021 Jenny Thomas

  October is a busy time for our IBM i ecosystem, with COMMON’s POWERUp conference wrapping up this week, and the final RPG & DB2 Summit coming up later this month, which you can find more details about in the Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings section. Of course, conference season has changed in the 18 months or so, but there are still opportunities to be had for online learning, although we look forward to the day when we can get back on the ground with all of you. Until then, read on for the news of the week.

  Top

  … Read more

• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 40

  October 6, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  The security vulnerabilities have calmed down for a week, and maybe the world was just being kind so we could all attend POWERUp 2021, which runs from Monday to Thursday this week and is only available online. Visit the COMMON user group website to find out the particulars.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level:

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • IBM HTTP Server for i
  • MQ for IBM i – v9.0.0/v9.1.0/V9.2.0
  • Db2 Web Query for i V2.3.0

  PTF Groups 7.3:

  • IBM HTTP Server for i
  • MQ for IBM i – v9.0.0/v9.1.0/V9.2.0
  • Db2 Web Query for i V2.3.0

  … Read more

• Fresche Buys Abacus To Integrate From IBM i To Cloud To Code

  October 4, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Last week, Fresche Solutions, arguably the largest provider of application development and modernization tools for the IBM i platform and its predecessors, acquired Abacus Solutions, a long-time provider of cloud and managed services for the same market, giving a new meaning to the word integration in the IBM i brand. Now, with the combination of Fresche and Abacus, we can add an adverb to the intransitive form of the verb: vertically integrated.

  Vertical integration is all the rage these days, at least among the hyperscalers and cloud builders that consume half of the IT gear in the world and …

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• Hit A Fiduciary Home Run With A Backup, DR, Cybersecurity Triple Play

  October 4, 2021 Jim Kandrac

  The old adage that the only secure computer is one that is not networked to anything has never been more true; however, it is also irrelevant even if it is funny. No computer can exist in a vacuum and is only useful if it is connected to other machines – and potentially lots of other machines. The level of malicious activity out there on the networks of the world has never been higher, and you had better get used to the idea that the situation is going to get worse every year, and the IBM i platform is absolutely …

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• Guru: Fall Brings New RPG Features (And So Did Spring!)

  October 4, 2021 Jon Paris

  When I first sat down to write this tip my focus was on introducing you to the new RPG features that were added alongside the latest September Technology Refresh (TR). However, when I tried to reference one of the enhancements from the spring enhancements, I quickly discovered that I had never written those up for the Guru column!

  Oooopppps! As a result, this “tip” will cover all the RPG enhancements added this year, both in the April and September announcements. It will be in two parts. This first part will cover the array-oriented features.

  RPG’s range of array-processing options has …

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• Db2 PTF Group Enhancements Target Web Services, Audit Journal

  October 4, 2021 Alex Woodie

  It is indisputable that the Db2 for i database is the beating heart of the IBM i platform. There were no earthshattering enhancements to this database in the latest batch of Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.3 and 7.4 that IBM announced and shipped last month. But there were a few items worth mentioning that shipped in the Db2 PTF Group, including new HTTP commands for calling the database via REST and new SQL-based commands for querying the security audit journal.

  The top new Db2 for i feature arguably is the new set of functions for HTTP requests to consume …

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• For The Prices They Are A-Changin’

  October 4, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Back in the day, when IBM made any price changes to products, we would see these things in the weekly summary reports that its announcement system had compiled and sent out to us on a weekly basis for several decades. Somewhere along the way, either our profile changed without our knowledge or IBM changed something about this email blast system behind the scenes and we stopped seeing all of these Price Change announcements.

  Just for the heck of it on Friday, which was a quiet news day in IBM i Land, I logged into the Web front end of the …

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