• The Big Easy: Connecting The Dots On Big Blue’s AI Strategy For IBM i

  May 4, 2026 Alex Woodie

  IBM has not yet formally announced the new AI products that it is building for IBM i. We know about Bob and the MCP server, but there is a lot more AI stuff coming to IBM i. IBM shared details of what is coming in closed sessions at POWERUp in New Orleans last week, but hints about where it is going and what is coming were there, if you knew where to look.

  IBM i, as we all know, is a business platform. It runs enterprise applications and it runs them extremely well. If you want to model a nuclear …

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• From Migration To Maturity: The Cloud Reality For IBM i Shops

  May 4, 2026 Doug McMaster

  IBM i teams don’t need to be convinced that modernization matters. Modernization should acknowledge why IBM i continues to power critical business operations: its predictable performance, tightly integrated environment, and strong security – especially when properly managed. While cloud initiatives are often framed with the assumption that everything must move, that approach is rarely the most effective starting point for IBM i environments.

  As cloud adoption has matured, a more grounded perspective has emerged. The real shift isn’t about infrastructure –it’s about the operating model. Most challenges don’t stem from technical limitations, but from misaligned expectations around cost, security responsibilities, …

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• COMMON Dances To A Fresh New Tune In New Orleans

  May 4, 2026 Alex Woodie

  This wasn’t the first COMMON conference held in New Orleans, but it may have been the best, considering where the IBM i platform is at this particular time and what happened down on the bayou last week.

  For starters, the four-day event attracted about 1,300 attendees, which is a solid increase from the 1,200 that attended last year’s conference in Anaheim, California. But here’s the kicker: About one-third of the COMMON POWERUp 2026 attendees were attending the conference for the first time. In other words, around 400 folks decided that IBM i education and community were important enough for them …

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• Eradani Touts Native Git Connection As AI Tools Spread

  May 4, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Thanks to AI tools like Bob and Claude, IBM i shops are changing how they develop code. AI tools can crank out RPG much faster, but the quality is inherently suspect, which makes having a solid change management life cycle very important. It’s the perfect setup for the folks at Eradani, who say their IBM i change management tool’s native integration with Git provides the right capabilities at the right time.

  What makes Eradani’s approach to supporting Git with its Eradani DevOps offering is the lack of compromise. Instead of splicing Git support into an existing change management product, …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 17

  May 4, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  We are in the middle of a house move right now, so the IBM i PTF Guide is running a little bit behind as we box and tape and lift and stack. In this week’s issue, we have two security vulnerabilities right off the bat.

  First, we have Security Bulletin: IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty is affected by identity spoofing (CVE-2026-3621), which you can find out more about at this link. The issue affects WebSphere Application Server – Liberty versions 17.0.0.3 through 26.0.

  Second, we have Security Bulletin: IBM i is Affected by Improper Handling of Special Elements and …

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• Power Systems Still Waiting For The GenAI Bump

  April 27, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  With the Power11 systems upgrade cycle only nine months old and with price increases that have been happening monthly since early April 1 and possibly continuing through the end of the year, we expect for the Power Systems business to be up in 2026 for the full year.

  In the first quarter of 2026 ended in March, IBM’s Infrastructure group, which includes sales of servers, storage, operating systems, and used gear, posted sales of $3.33 billion, up 15.3 percent. Gross profits rose by 24.2 percent for the Infrastructure group, to just a tad under $1.9 billion, and pre-tax income for …

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• The IBM i and the Hybrid Cloud World: Things To Keep In Mind

  April 27, 2026 Gregg Rohaly

  As hybrid IT becomes the default operating model, the IBM i platform is increasingly positioned not as a legacy “system in the corner,” but as a high-value, mission-critical core surrounded by modern integration layers and cloud-connected services.

  In The IBM i And The Hybrid Cloud World: Things To Keep In Mind, a fast-paced conversation explores what IBM i leaders – and the partners who advise them – should prioritize when aligning IBM i with today’s hybrid cloud expectations.

  For this video interview, Gregg Rohaly as CloudSAFE’s business development manager, joined Ron Venzin, a CloudSAFE founder and chief development officer, …

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• CData Adds Db2 for i Support to CDC Tool

  April 27, 2026 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that need to quickly move data from their database to other systems for AI, analytics, or operational uses may be interested in recent news out of CData. The company announced that it’s now supporting Db2 for i with Sync, its real-time change data capture (CDC) product.

  CData Software is a Cherry Hill, North Carolina-based company that has been building data integration software since it was founded in 2010. In addition to database drivers (ODBC, JDBC, OLE DB), database connectors, and embedded solutions, the company develops a data integration platform dubbed Sync that provides a range of CDC, …

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• As I See It: The Cost of Having Ethics

  April 27, 2026 Victor Rozek

  It sounds like something out of a grade B sci-fi movie. Fleets of surveillance drones, functioning as airborne behavior monitors, trailing behind people like malevolent balloons. Phone conversations and internet activity evaluated for any hint of non-compliance, location tracked. The possibility of such a dystopian future should be confined to bad sci-fi features, but it is not. At least according to Dario Amodei, co-founder of Anthropic and its controversial AI spawn Claude.

  “It might be frighteningly plausible,” Amodei writes “to simply generate a complete list of anyone who disagrees with the government on any number of issues, even if such …

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• Brace Yourself: Another Power Systems Price Hike Coming May 1

  April 20, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  A few weeks ago, when we talked about the price increases on main memory and flash for Power Systems machines as well as some other price increases, we told you that this would probably not be the end of it. The market for DRAM and flash is so crazy right now that demand is well exceeding supply and that is driving up prices almost continuously. That’s because supply cannot be increased for either.

  To that end, Sam Werner, general manager of IBM Storage, and Ivo Körner, vice president of worldwide sales for IBM Power, Cloud, and Storage, sent out a …

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• Updates Announced for IBM i BRMS And SMTP Email Client

  April 20, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Big Blue hasn’t yet announced its spring IBM i Technology Refresh (TR), which we told you last week will come a bit later this year to align with IBM’s expected announcement of a new entry-level, P05-class Power11 machine. But that didn’t stop IBM from making other IBM i-related announcements last week, including some important updates to BRMS and the Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) email client.

  With its update for Backup, Recovery, and Media Services for i (BRMS), which IBM announced on April 14, IBM is bolstering the new Web GUI with updated capabilities that will make the product …

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• AI Will Be Front And Center At POWERUp 2026 Next Week

  April 20, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Had enough of AI? Well, if you are headed to New Orleans, Louisiana, for the POWERUp 2026 conference next week, get ready to hear a lot more about the emerging technology, which is upending not only how we play but also how we work – and the IBM i platform is not immune from this change.

  If recent POWERUp events are any indication, COMMON will be expecting 1,100 to 1,200 people for its annual conference, which is taking place April 27 through 30 at the New Orleans Marriott, just around the corner from Bourbon Street in the historic French Quarter. …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 16

  April 20, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, but this is definitely not true in a lot of the United States right now. Mayflowers can, and possibly might, still bring Pilgrims.

  Meanwhile, back in IBM i Land, there are a thousand lakes and rolling farmland with the occasional city far off in the distance, plus a remediation of a bug in the Java PTF Group and a security vulnerability that you have to take a gander at.

  Let’s start with the security vulnerability, which is outlined in Security Bulletin: IBM i is affected by a privilege escalation vulnerability in Web …

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• Spring IBM i Tech Refreshes Will Come A Bit Later This Year

  April 13, 2026 Alex Woodie

  IBM is working on a new Technology Refresh, as it traditionally does this time of year. But the spring TR announcement will not be made before the POWERUp conference takes place at the end of the month, IT Jungle has learned. Instead, the company will be holding off on the spring TR so that it aligns with a broader Power announcement.

  IBM i shops have been conditioned to expect two TRs every year, one in the spring (usually April) and another in the fall (usually October). The spring TR is usually timed to occur before COMMON holds its annual POWERUp …

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• You Are Much More Than Power Systems, And So Are We

  April 13, 2026 Doug McMaster

  The AS/400 was born in the age of minicomputers, but that was also when the rise of the personal computer started and eventually led to the revolution of client/server distributed computing. Not only was computing shifted to the PCs on our desks, but also out to file servers, print servers, and application servers that ran all kinds of different platforms, including NetWare, SCO Unix, OS/2 Server, rarely a variant of Unix, what would become Windows Server, and more recently Linux.

  Eventually, Windows Server and Linux became not only Web infrastructure and application serving platforms but ran relational databases and sometimes …

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• Startup Seeks The “Golden Path” for IBM i Modernization

  April 13, 2026 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops looking for a partner to help with RPG modernization may want to check out Golden Path Digital. The startup recently announced a modernization initiative dubbed AS/Forward that includes a mix of code documentation and AI-powered code conversion tools, all wrapped up with professional services, to give IBM i shops a lifeline for aging RPG apps.

  Golden Path Digital was founded last year in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, by two business partners, Aaron Balentine and Ty Woods. An AI engineer at a local lumber company that runs on the IBM i platform, Valentine is the technical one, while …

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• What Can IBM Do To Make The Future Power S1112 Mini System Compelling?

  April 13, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The Power11-based Power Systems lineup remains incomplete, with the single-socket, half-width “Bonnell” system that debuted back in May 2024 still only available with Power10 processors and not yet upgraded to Power11. We know such a machine is in the works, because Big Blue has been clear about the need to ship a machine in the IBM i P05 software tier, the lowest rung on the IBM i ladder.

  We have not heard anything precise about the Bonnell kicker, and we would have thought it would have been launched in February or March. It has not. It is reasonable to expect …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 15

  April 13, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  Well, this week’s security vulnerability looks pretty serious, so you best not skip this one. And as usual, it is happing with open source software embedded in the IBM i platform. The vulnerability is outlined in Security Bulletin: IBM i is Affected by Security Control Bypass and Uncontrolled Resource Consumption Vulnerabilities in IBM Java SDK and IBM Java Runtime [CVE-2026-21925, CVE-2026-21933, CVE-2026-21932, CVE-2026-21945].

  You can read more about it at this link. Here is the list of remediations and fixes for the Java hole, which are available for IBM i 7.4, IBM i 7.5, and IBM i 7.6:

  Remediation/Fixes, 

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• Bob 1.0 Users Bugged By Lack Of One Feature

  April 6, 2026 Alex Woodie

  The launch of the Bob AI coding tool in late March has been met with considerable amount of hoopla by IBM, as well as anticipation by the IBM i community. The early reception to Bob has been mixed, due in part to the lack of one particular feature.

  Bob is a new AI tool from IBM that’s designed to help developers understand, document, and generate code in a variety of languages and platforms. On the IBM i server, Bob supports RPG, as well as CL, SQL, DDS, and COBOL, while it supports other languages on other platforms. IBM introduced Bob …

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• Here Come The AI-Based Code Modernization Offerings

  April 6, 2026 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that are stuck with old code but don’t have the manpower to modernize it themselves are now considering the use of AI to handle much work. This new era of AI-assisted application modernization that we are now entering has the potential to be a boon for understaffed IBM i shops, but it raises new questions and concerns that IBM i professionals should keep in mind.

  The capability of AI to understand, document, and generate computer code has increased significantly over the past year. Thanks to fundamental improvements in large language models (LLMs), we’re now at the point …

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