The IT Jungle

DRV Brings More Automation to IBM i Message Monitoring

June 22, 2022 Alex Woodie

Automation is the name of the game in IT today, particularly with the talent shortage gripping the industry and remote work becoming the norm. To that end, a new release of a message management solution from DRV Technologies that will enable IBM i shops to automate their responses to IBM i messages will likely be well received.

DRV Technologies develops a series of handy utilities for the IBM i server, including spool management and distribution (SpoolFlex), a forms management tool (FormFlex), secure MICR check printing (SecureChex), a database query and report writing tool (DBXFlex), and MessageFlex, a message monitoring solution. …
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Managed Cloud Saves Money By Cutting System And People Overprovisioning

June 22, 2022 Ron Venzin

For most IBM i shops in the world, a unit of compute, storage, or networking on a cloud or a unit of time for a skilled IT specialist is always going to cost more than what it costs to have such talent in house. And so, you would think, putting an IBM i system in the cloud and managing all aspects of that system will always cost companies more money, right?

Wrong.

Here’s the part of the math that people rarely do, and that we do each time we close another cloud and managed services deal for an IBM i …
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Multiple Security Vulnerabilities Patched on IBM i

June 22, 2022 Alex Woodie

In recent weeks, IBM has disclosed a handful of vulnerabilities in its IBM i operating system and related IBM i products, including Db2 Mirror, WebSphere, Navigator for i, the Java development and runtime tools, and OmniFind Text Search Server. IBM has shipped PTFs for the security problems, which range in severity from medium to high.

IBM warned of security holes in the HTTP Server (the one powered by Apache) in a June 13 security bulletin. The flaws, identified as CVE-2022-22720 and CVE-2022-22721, carry the risk of a HTTP request smuggling that could poison the Web cache, bypass firewalls, and …
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Four Hundred Monitor, June 22

June 22, 2022 Jenny Thomas

It’s been said that no one needs a vacation as much as the person who just had one. Catching up after a vacation is not an easy task. I have just returned from two weeks on the road and my To Do list is two miles long as I struggle to catch up and offer apologies for missed and delayed emails. Still, it is important to make time for family and things other than work, so I will happily get my desk and inbox back in order. And since I have had my fun, let’s get back in the groove …
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IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 25

June 22, 2022 Doug Bidwell

It is beginning to feel a bit a bit like Groundhog Day at the IBM i PTF Guide. Yet more security vulnerabilities are surfacing in the IBM i platform. While the number of new security bulletins for IBM i is nowhere near what we see with Windows Server and Linux platforms, it has become a constant game of Whack-a-mole. So get out your rubber mallet and get the Aspercreme ready to fight tendonitis. . . .

First, we have Security Bulletin: IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty for IBM i is vulnerable to identity spoofing and port status query (CVE-2022-22475 …
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Plotting A Middle Age Career Change To IBM i

June 20, 2022 Alex Woodie

Not many colleges teach the IBM i and RPG anymore, which makes it hard for midrange shops to replenish talent that way. But organizations have another resource they can tap for technical personnel: slightly more experienced individuals who are ready to start a second career. This is the path taken by Shelly Petty, who recently shared her story at the POWERUp 2022 conference in New Orleans.

Petty spent 12 years working in the banking field before making her career change to IBM i. Her previous job was a high-stress position that required her to handle securities on behalf of corporate …
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What Is Code Transformation Even?

June 20, 2022 Miranda VanHorn

Transformation is a complex concept. It can mean many different things depending on whom you are asking. It could be UI transformation, where an improvement in the user interface provides all end-users a memorable, personalized, and deeply engaging experience.

It could also refer to code transformation, which improves the performance of applications using a new language or architecture, or it could be a total digital transformation where the system is entirely modernized for business success.

A transformation could also mean changing a physical process of using pen and paper (e.g., documentation or signing of contracts) into a systematic approach using …
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Guru: The CALL I’ve Been Waiting For

June 20, 2022 Ted Holt

Christmas came to my house early this year. May 3, to be exact. Boy! Was Santa Claus good to me! IBM gave me two presents! The first was a CL enhancement that I had desired for years. The second was an improvement that, to my delight, almost obsoletes a utility I wrote years ago. Both have to do with the CL CALL command.

CALL is arguably the most used and most important command in CL, yet for all these years it has remained untouched. I’m glad that IBM has seen fit to devote time and resources to the enhancement of …
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A Frank Solstice

June 20, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

When you are born in Minnesota, the seasons matter. Unfortunately, as Frank Soltis, the former chief architect of the AS/400 system and the creator of the single-level storage architecture of the System/38 and the AS/400 that is still a marvel, once quipped to us: “There are only two seasons in Minnesota: Winter, and Getting Ready For Winter.”

And so, you have two options: Play hockey when you aren’t farming, or design excellent computer systems. That’s how supercomputer genius Seymour Cray did it from nearby Wisconsin.

The AS/400 for which this publication was founded 33 years ago was born on the …
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The Inevitable Wave Of Power9 Withdrawals Begins

June 20, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

With the entry and midrange Power10 servers coming in a few weeks, and with the supply chains for chip, board, and system manufacturing having more kinks than a Slinky left in the hands of a group of seven-year-olds for several days, it is only natural for Big Blue to focus on lining up all of the parts needed for its Power10 iron and to stop worrying so much about Power9 features and peripherals. Even though it will be selling Power9 iron for quite some time and supporting it for a very long time.

And that is exactly what will be …
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Profound Logic Shows Off No-Code API for Salesforce

June 15, 2022 Alex Woodie

IBM i shops that are looking for a way to integrate their Db2 for i data with Salesforce applications may be interested in a new REST API unveiled by Profound Logic last month. What’s more, the vendor says the solution works without writing a single line of code.

Profound API, which the company launched just over a year ago, is a Node.js-based offering that runs directly in a Web browser. The product contains several editors and a runtime that enables users to define their APIs, test them, manage them as they’re pushed into production, and monitor performance over time. …
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Getting A Firm Handle On Power Systems And Storage Firmware

June 15, 2022 Richard Warren

Back in the old days of the AS/400 and the iSeries, most customers had a single box or maybe two, one for production applications and databases and one for development of high availability. And everything that box needed was inside of itself.

And at most, you applied two kinds of PTFs – those for the operating system and those for the microcode – to the machine, and you did that maybe once or twice a year and every once in a while you might add some group PTFs to update security or other important features.

But the world has changed …
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Ragged Flash: A Smooth Solution to a Thorny Problem

June 15, 2022 Alex Woodie

There are many benefits to using IBM’s FlashCopy services, which delivers a nearly instantaneous copy of a customer’s IBM i environment. But there are also challenges, such as when a FlashCopy is paired with an IPL, which had the habit in busy environments of throwing the source and the copy out of synch. IBM has addressed this problem with “ragged flash.”

Ragged flash is one of the new database features delivered in IBM i 7.5 (it’s not available in 7.4). Scott Forstie, the database architect for IBM i, identified the ragged flash as one of his most favorite new database …
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Four Hundred Monitor, June 15

June 15, 2022 Jenny Thomas

I’m working from the road this week, and we are experiencing record breaking heat in East Texas. We have had some minor issues – no Wi-Fi in the hotel, the A/C died in the rental car – but nothing we haven’t been able to solve – new hotel, exchanged rental car – and annoying as it was, I am quick to remember when traveling for an extended period was a lot harder when it wasn’t so easy to adapt and work from the road. This week, we have had several new entries into our Calendar, which means many of you …
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IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 24

June 15, 2022 Doug Bidwell

If it seems like just about every week there is a security vulnerability within the broad and deep expanse of the IBM i platform, well it isn’t just seeming like that. It is like that. And this week we start out with four news ones that you have to contend with in the IBM i PTF Guide.

First, we have Security Bulletin: Due to use of Spring Framework, IBM Db2 Web Query for i is vulnerable to unprotected fields (CVE-2022-22968), remote code execution (CVE-2022-22965), and denial of service (CVE-2022-22950). Find out more about that at this link. Here …
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IBM i Licensing, Part 2: Subscriptions Change Everything

June 13, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

In a very funny way, the licensing of the IBM i platform is coming full circle with the advent of subscription pricing – with some funny curlicues along the way with over three decades of software licensing history and an even longer history of Big Blue renting, rather than selling, its software. When IBM first delivered its punch card machines, way way back, they were only available for rent, not for sale. The long arm of the law taught IBM to have some optionality, and it thus sold mainframes and minicomputers as well as leasing and renting them.

But before …
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Thoroughly Modern: Good Security Is Just As Important As Good Code

June 13, 2022 Pauline Brazil Ayala

Can my IBM i really be hit with a virus? Can it be hit with ransomware?

These are the questions I regularly get from clients as a security expert with more than 20 years of experience. With the pervasiveness of these ransomware threats and sophisticated cyberattacks that we’re seeing in recent times, it only makes sense that we pay close attention to these threats.

Security on the IBM i is a complex topic, and it is not one that is easily tackled with a few bullet points and tweaks of systems settings. Just like programming on the platform, for that …
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Will IBM i Become More Like Linux?

June 13, 2022 Alex Woodie

The recent launch of Merlin, a Linux-based collection of tools for creating next-gen IBM i applications, has raised questions about the future of IBM i. One of the questions has to do with IBM i’s relationship with Linux, and whether it will have to be become more like Linux to survive. Just like IBM i had to become more like Unix and Windows Server, in many ways, to survive.

Merlin is a different sort of product than what IBM typically ships. For starters, it isn’t a modernization tool per se, but more like a collection of tools that allow …
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Connectria And Curbstone In Payment Tie-Up

June 13, 2022 Alex Woodie

Connectria, which operates an IBM i cloud out of several data centers and is arguably one of the largest IBM i cloud providers in the world, has inked a deal with IBM i card payment firm Curbstone that will see the two company’s become business partners.

Curbstone is a Jasper, Georgia-based company that develops IBM i software that allows merchants to process debit and credit card transactions directly on the IBM i server. The software is fully PCI DSS compliant and features scores of integrations with various payment networks as well as IBM i applications like those from Infor, …
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Looks Like July 12 For Power10 Announcements, Maybe July 27 for Shipments

June 13, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Those of us who have been waiting for the entry and midrange Power10 machines to be announced and start shipping, and thus beginning a new hardware cycle and a new opportunity to get IBM i shops on current hardware and software, will not have to wait long.

According to the latest rumors, it looks like the announcements of the entry Power10 machines – to be known as the Power S1014, the Power S1022s, the Power S1022, the Power L1022, the Power S1024, and the Power L1024 – and the Power E1050 midrange machine will happen on July 12. Which, as …
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