• Critical PHP2Shell Security Vulns Evoke ‘Black October’

  October 26, 2026 Alex Woodie

  AI helped uncover a pair of critical security vulnerabilities in PHP that can be used to execute code, including on IBM i servers, sent administrators around the world scrambling to install patches on a large swath of the Internet’s Web servers before cybercriminals can get to them. The flaws, along with the rapid dissemination of AI-based exploit code, led some organizations to simply unplug their websites, earning the whole episode the name “Black October.”

  On October 21, patches for two critical security vulnerabilities in PHP were released. The two vulns, CVE-2026-109619 and CVE-2026-109618, collectively called PHP2Shell, each garnered a …

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• Why Fortra Partnered with FalconStor to Launch Continuity Care: A Validated Recovery Service for IBM i

  October 26, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  With over 7,000 Power Systems customers, Fortra is one of the largest software conglomerates serving the IBM i and AIX communities and it is by far the largest supplier of systems software for Power Systems. The company is also a key development partner of Big Blue, having nine years ago taken over enhancements to Rational Developer for i, Backup, Recovery and Media Services (BRMS) on i, and PowerHA SystemMirror for i.

  As such, Fortra is a perfect partner for FalconStor Software as it seeks to expand the use of its Habanero off-site data protection SaaS and its related Cloud Clean …

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• Guru: Analyzing User Session Statistics, Part 2

  October 26, 2026 Mike Larsen

  In part one of this tip, I showed how to determine the number of times a user signed in and signed out of IBM i for a given period. In this tip, I will show how to get the days a user signed in, and how long their session was active.

  I use the same table function, QSYS2.HISTORY_LOG_INFO, as before. The code (Figure 1 below) is similar to the code used in the first part of this series, but there are some differences I will point out.

  Note that I purposely left the user ID out of the result set …

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• Fresche Launches OpsIQ, a Free AI-Based Operation Assistant for IBM i

  October 26, 2026 Alex Woodie

  IBM i developers have embraced AI-based coding tools, such as IBM’s Bob and Anthropic’s Claude Code, but IBM i administrators so far haven’t benefited from the AI productivity boost in the same way. That is starting to change, and one of the first AI-based administrative helpers is a free tool launched recently by Fresche called OpsIQ.

  OpsIQ is an AI assistant designed to help IBM i users get answers to questions about their systems. It is currently a read-only tool for helping users interrogate the system for information about server configurations, the state of jobs, and errors or alerts, which …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 37

  October 26, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  Well, brace yourself. We have two things you need to be aware of and a slew, an absolute slew, of security vulnerabilities in the IBM i stack.

  To begin with, IBM System Planning Tool for POWER processor-based systems – SPT Version 6.26.286.0 is available for download. You can get it HERE.

  And then there is Potential WebSphere Application Server problems when deployed behind a WebSphere-aware proxy server, where a WebSphere application running behind a HTTP proxy server may begin experiencing failures with client certificate based authentication, or if client IP addresses or connection information are reported incorrectly as those …

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• Fall TRs Expected Next Week At Combined IBM-COMMON Conference

  October 19, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Big Blue delayed its spring Technology Refreshes for IBM i earlier by three months this year so that it could simultaneously announce the new entry level Power server. It seems very unlikely that we’ll see such a delay for the fall TR, however, as IBM gears up for its semi-annual announcement for the still-popular midrange server at next week’s combined IBM-COMMON conference.

  There are several indicators that the fall TR is looming. For starters, IBM essentially said that the fall TR is coming in the description for one of its upcoming IBM i Guided Tours, which have become the …

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• GenAI Brings A New Kind Of Agile Computing That Needs Controls Even More

  October 19, 2026 Michel Mouchon

  As if trying to make use of a whole new computing architecture and coming up with the budget to experiment and roll features into production were not enough, there are a slew of issues when bringing GenAI to the IBM i datacenter.

  There are those who say that people cannot learn from the experience of others. We have never believed that. Which is why we want to share some of the hard-won wisdom we have developed four years after the ChatGPT moment that rocked the world and that is changing many things. But not everything needs to change or will …

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• IBM i, AI, And The Cost Of “We’ve Always Done It That Way”

  October 19, 2026 Peg Tuttle

  I’ve spent more than 30 years in the IBM i community, and I’ve heard one phrase more times than I can count: “We’ve always done it that way.” Sometimes it’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Other times, I think it might be one of the most dangerous things we can say about a technology environment.

  Think about it. IBM i has been running mission-critical business applications for decades. Manufacturing, distribution, financial services, healthcare, retail. These systems process orders, manage inventory, run financial applications, and support operations that cannot afford to stop.

  And they do it remarkably well.

  That reliability is one …

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• Infor Says IBM i Customers Are Welcome To Use New AI

  October 19, 2026 Alex Woodie

  This month, Infor launched new AI software designed to help its ERP customers automate specific business processes in industry verticals. While the AI capability uses Infor’s cloud environment, customers that run Infor’s IBM i-based ERP software on-prem can also partake of the new capabilities, Infor tells IT Jungle.

  In early October, Infor launched the latest release of its Infor Velocity Suite, which is a collection of AI agents, generative AI capabilities, process mining, and automation built for specific industries. Infor first launched its Velocity Suite in April 2025 to turn customers into “agentic enterprises” where AI agents go beyond …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 36

  October 19, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  Just a reminder that with IBM i 7.6 TR2 and IBM i 7.5 TR8, there is a virtual Ethernet connectivity advisory. IBM is currently investigating a reported issue affecting systems running IBM i 7.6 TR2 or IBM i 7.5 TR8. Installing the Technology Refresh (TR) can cause a complete loss of network connectivity on partitions using Virtual Ethernet adapter type 268C. IBM is actively working to identify the root cause and appropriate corrective action.

  Development has identified the root cause of the issue and has released the following HIPER PTFs to address it. You can read more about this issue …

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• Help Us Understand The IBM i Marketplace By Taking The Survey

  October 19, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It is October, and that means the annual IBM i Marketplace Survey from Fortra is open, and we are asking you to spend some time 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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• IBM Goes GA With Power Autonomous Operations

  October 12, 2026 Alex Woodie

  IBM is now shipping Power Autonomous Operations, a new product that uses AI to help customers manage and optimize their Power environments with little to no human involvement. In addition to lowering the manual effort for administrators, the product provides a natural language interface for administrators, which IBM says lowers operational burden and accelerates problem resolution.

  Big Blue unveiled Power Autonomous Operations in July when it made its delayed Spring Technology Refresh (TR) for IBM i and announced the Power S1112 entry-level machine. It started shipping Autonomous Ops on September 23.

  Just as Bob is helping to accelerate productivity of …

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• IBM Wheels And Deals To Sell Power Systems, Storage, and Software

  October 12, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Companies are focused on generative AI and how it might be integrated into their applications and their business, but everyone realizes by now that adding GenAI to the systems stack often means needing to upgrade existing back office (transactions) and front office (data analytics) systems so they can feed the AI beast faster and more efficiently. Because there is nothing in the world more expensive than a GPU or an XPU sitting idle when it could be chewing on or spitting out tokens.

  To that end, Big Blue is offering a “Buy Now. Pay Later” deal for customers who are …

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• Guru: When RNF0722 Won’t Let Your Legendary RPG Program Compile

  October 12, 2026 Gregory Simmons

  Some RPG programs have been around for decades. They started small enough. Then another calculation was added here, another subroutine there, a /COPY member or two, and years of enhancements, fixes, and changing business requirements.

  Eventually, some of them became colossal. And let’s face it, we all have “legacy” or, as some would argue, “legendary” programs that are older than a lot of our new hires.

  We all know these programs. They’re the ones everybody agrees should be broken apart someday, but they’re also important production programs that still need to be maintained today. And sometimes “today” presents a very …

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• A Read-Only MCP Server For Db2 for i

  October 12, 2026 Alex Woodie

  IBM i developers who want to let their users query Db2 for i using AI tools like Claude Desktop and Cursor, but also want to limit their access to the database, may be interested in a new open source MCP server that connects to the database in read-only mode.

  Roni Ström just wanted to be able to leverage the SQL-generation capabilities of latest AI coding assistants to be able to ask questions of Db2 for i using plain language. But the Finnish IBM i developer was becoming frustrated with the process.

  “I kept doing the same thing,” Ström wrote in …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 35

  October 12, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  Another week, another bunch of things to ponder about the IBM i platform and get fixed or re-fixed. This is ever the way with systems software, which is constantly changing, and despite the fact that Big Blue is not Meta Platforms and it is not interested in “moving fast and breaking things” sometimes things don’t work right or stop working due to unintended consequences.

  This is life on an Earth with an icing of software on it.

  First up, here is something to look out for: NTP Client job can’t start after applying latest PTF (SJ11498). More information is available …

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• Please Take The IBM i Marketplace Survey So We Know What You Know

  October 12, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Yup, it is that time of the year again. The annual IBM i Marketplace Survey from Fortra is open, and we are asking you to spend some time 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 …

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• 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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