• What’s Behind Syncsort’s Rebranding As Precisely?

  June 1, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Syncsort, the company that merged with Vision Solutions three years ago and acquired several IBM i security firms, has changed its name to Precisely. According to chief executive officer Josh Rogers, the new name is a better reflection of what the company has become following its acquisition of Pitney Bowes’ data and software business: laser-focused on data integrity.

  The name change has been a long time in coming, according to Rogers, who took the helm at Syncsort in 2016. While the Syncsort brand has been around for 50 years, the company’s focus has shifted considerably from the early …

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• COBOL Is Not The Problem; The Data Is

  June 1, 2020 Brad Thomas

  The COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on COBOL, with multiple news stories about COBOL systems struggling as unprecedented demands have been placed on them. And then there are the urgent requests for COBOL developers to help ensure these mission-critical systems do their jobs.

  Eventually, the dust will settle, but some tough decisions will loom for organizations that rely on COBOL. The reality, though, is these decisions were already on the horizon because of the constant evolvement of other data management technologies, surging data production and the rapidly increasing average age of COBOL developers. When the dust does settle, it …

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• Guru: Introduction to the Administration Runtime Expert

  June 1, 2020 Dawn May

  Business-critical applications must be up and running reliably without failure. When something unexpected occurs, you must identify the cause and correct it quickly. Whether you’re a developer launching a new application, enhancing an existing application, or maintaining a legacy application, or an administrator managing the infrastructure, we all want to find ways to make our jobs easier, and unexpected surprises are not fun. I expect the relentless push to do more with less is only going to intensify while the tolerance for failure keeps dropping. Yet identifying points of failure can be tricky as complexities scale.

  IBM i offers a …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, June 1

  June 1, 2020 Jenny Thomas

  A lot has happened in the last week. There has been some exciting news like seeing astronauts heading back into space, and there has been some upsetting like the unrest in cities around the U.S. So we hope you’ll find Four Hundred Monitor to be a respite from the world. While we can’t completely avoid the coronavirus, we can stick to how it is affecting our industry and keep our focus on computing and the midrange space. It has always been our goal to gather interesting news, helpful resources, and industry happenings into this useable resource as a service to …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 22

  June 1, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  First of all, thanks to the readership of the IBM i PTF Guide for catching errors and other issues in last week’s edition. We have fixed a reference to V7R3 defectives. And the number for the V7R3 cume is happening in the future, we cleaned that up, too.

  There is a New Group – TCP/IP for 7.4 – see the link in the Guide for details. Note: This group has not been added to SF99741 (All Groups) yet and it must be ordered separately.

  There is also updated microcode for Machine-Type Models: 9008-22L; 9009-22A; 9009-41A; 9009-42A; 9223-22H; 9223-42H (System Firmware …

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• The Technology Refreshes That Are Not TRs As We Know Them

  May 27, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  All of us have been expecting the Technology Refreshes – that is IBM i 7.3 TR8 and IBM i 7.4 TR2 – to come out on May 15. And when that didn’t happen, a bunch of us started scratching our heads a bit. Thus far, as we go to press, Big Blue has not put out a formal statement to customers about what is going on, but a number of big IBM i customers received a notification from somewhere up the chain of command about the situation, while at the same time, unbeknownst to many, IBM i chief architect Steve …

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• Thoroughly Modern: Quick Digital Transformation Wins With Web And Mobile IBM i Apps

  May 27, 2020 Kevin Cronin

  The future of IT no longer involves hiding in the basement and pushing buttons. In today’s digital economy, the role of IT – and IBM i – is critical. Internal users and customers are demanding modern, intuitive applications that are easy to access. If you’re an IT leader, you’re likely meeting with business stakeholders, discussing how you can grow and improve your business, and looking at what’s available to satisfy those needs.

  As my colleagues have discussed in previous installments of this column, failing to innovate in your market could put your business at risk. Digital disruption is happening …

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• Seiden Group Offers PHP Migration Service

  May 27, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Change is in the air when it comes to PHP on IBM i. The free Zend distribution of PHP that has been adopted by thousands of IBM i shops over the years is going away, and it’s being replaced by a new community distribution that’s installed via RPM. But how can you move existing PHP apps to the new environment? Seiden Group has a potential solution.

  As we told you last week, the Zend Server Basic environment will stop being offered by Perforce (the company that now owns Zend Technology) or distributed with the IBM i operating system on …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, May 27

  May 27, 2020 Jenny Thomas

  With the passing of the Memorial Day holiday in America last weekend, observed to honor the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military, the summer season is officially underway. Of course, it looks a lot different this year, with many businesses still shuttered and workers making plans for re-openings instead of vacations. The news continues to reflect the havoc caused by the coronavirus, as we see IBM slashing jobs as companies continue to look for ways to stay connected to employees and customers. With any luck, the warmer weather will bring better news, computing- and coronavirus-wise, …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 21

  May 27, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  As we report elsewhere in this issue, there really is not going to be a Technology Refresh as we know it and as we were all lead to believe was coming for IBM i 7.3 and IBM i 7.4, but rather just a refresh of all the pertinent groups through the PTF process.

  Also, IBM’s Entitled Systems Support (ESS) has finally finished shedding its old coat, and the new one contains current resaves and a new way of asking for things! So be aware of that and take a gander. Moreover, Domino links have changed, thanks to Michael Mayer in …

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• The End is Near for Zend Server Basic PHP

  May 20, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Zend Server Basic, the free PHP runtime used by thousands of IBM i shops, will cease being offered starting in July 2021. That’s the word from Perforce, the company that now owns Zend and its lineup of PHP tools and technologies. The replacement, of course, is the new community edition of PHP that became available via RPM in late 2019.

  Starting in 2006, Zend Technology began to develop a special version of its PHP runtime for IBM i, which was then called i5/OS. This offering, dubbed Zend Core for i5/OS, provided a familiar way for users of the iSeries server …

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• A Simple Web Service Framework from Core-I Solutions

  May 20, 2020 Alex Woodie

  It can sometimes be difficult for IBM i shops to communicate with the outside world. RPG developers can get lost in the weeds of trying to figure out how to move data off IBM i to another platform. One potential solution is a new REST/Web services framework called Corei RSt that its creator says will simplify APIs.

  According to Core-I Solutions principal Jefferson Vaughn, a senior software engineer based in South Carolina, the Corei RSt framework streamlines the process of exposing IBM i data to business partners, customers, and outside developers who aren’t inside the company’s intranet.

  The framework leverages …

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• Raz-Lee Launches Web Interface for iSecurity Suite

  May 20, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Green screen interfaces were just fine in the old days of the AS/400. But today, many IBM i administrators would prefer a little more color with their screens. For IBM i shops that use software from Raz-Lee Security to police their system, they now have the option of using a Web-based graphical user interface (GUI) to interact with the company’s entire suite of tools.

  Raz-Lee has included GUIs in its offerings for many years. In the 2000s, it developed a Java-based interface for certain components of its iSecurity Suite. More recently, it developed an Eclipse-based product called the iSecurity GUI …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, May 20

  May 20, 2020 Jenny Thomas

  Depending on where you reside, you may be seeing some changes in the stay-at-home order most of us have been living under since March. In some parts of the U.S., restaurants and gyms have re-opened, while in other places, like here in southern California, we only just allowed back to our beaches (surfers and walkers only, no sitting on the sand) and all while under cover of masks. What does seem to be more common is the desire to get back underway again, with many businesses doing whatever is necessary to adapt and open their doors in some fashion. Hopefully …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 20

  May 20, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  It has been a weird week in PTF Land. The respin of the operating systems is temporarily unavailable from IBM’s Entitled Systems Support and as far as we can tell the Technology Refreshes – that’s IBM i 7.3 TR8 and IBM i 7.4 TR2 – are not yet available. We are trying to get to the bottom of the issue. There’s something weird going on.

  In the meantime, there are recommended High Availability fixes for IBM i 7.2., IBM i 7.3, and IBM i 7.4. There is also a Security Bulletin: Vulnerability CVE-2020-4345 in SQL that affects IBM i, 7.4, …

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• IBM Doubles Up Memory And I/O On Power Iron To Bend The Downturn

  May 18, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Back in early January, before the coronavirus pandemic had kicked in outside of Wuhan, China, Big Blue decided to rejigger the pricing on the memory and flash storage used in the current Power8 and Power9 systems lineup. Small form factor flash drives had a price increase of 6 percent to 7 percent, fatter SAS drives had a price increase of 6 percent to 14 percent, and on some machines they went down 10 percent. NVM-Express flash cards had price decreases of 16 percent to 27 percent. Main memory prices were cut anywhere from 2.4 percent to 18.5 percent, with the …

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• Welcome To The ‘Riehl’ World: Live, Hands-On IBM i Training

  May 18, 2020 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops don’t have a ton of options available when it comes to online IBM i education these days. If you’re in the market to improve your skills, one of the outfits that should be on your shortlist is The 400 School, which is one of the few places left that offers hands-on IBM i education, according to the company’s founder and president, Dan Riehl.

  Riehl has had the kind of IBM midrange career that younger folks arriving on the platform today can only dream of. He has founded companies, written books, worked as a security consultant and …

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• Guru: RDi V9.6, Part 8 – Better Ways To Copy Members, Manage LIBLs, and Find Preferences

  May 18, 2020 Susan Gantner

  If my crystal ball had told me just how many RDi V9.6 fix packs there would be and, more importantly, how many great new features would be added, I might have thought differently about starting a numbered series! Looks like I may well make it into double digits. But I’m not complaining. RDi has always been a great tool, and the pace of significant new functionality added since late 2017, when V9.6 first appeared, has reached new heights.

  This tip covers some of the features added in V9.6.0.7. Yes, I still have some catching up to do since 9.6.0.8 recently …

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• Unperspective: Are You Still Pushing A Hand Mower?

  May 18, 2020 Trevor Perry

  Driving on the freeway the other day, a small Fiat 500 zipped around me and pulled into the left lane, right behind a Ford F450 dualie. A tiny car, with a driver vaping with one hand, following this huge truck at 70 mph, without consideration for any possible traffic situation, other drivers on the road, or even their own life.

  Driving is a phenomenon where the operator, being surrounded by a large box of metal – and often a lot of plastic, feels invincible and invulnerable. This comfort zone is completely artificial – an invention of the driver’s mind. There …

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• IBM Adds Deals And Tools To Cloudy Power Service

  May 18, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In February last year, Big Blue surprised many of us by announcing that it was putting Power8 and Power9 systems onto the IBM Cloud and offering up true cloud capacity, with utility pricing, for the capacity on Power S922 entry and Power E880 high-end servers. We did a detailed analysis of the Power Systems Virtual Server for IBM Cloud offering here, and talked about the pricing for compute, storage, and networking for the service there. The offering was first available in June of last year, and subsequently the Power E980 has been added to the mix.

  Now, we …

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